One wheel on ice, the diff is doing just what it is supposed to do... the car moves forward and straight up the slope. With both wheels on ice it acts like any diff. Both wheel spin, but if one finds traction it will then move straight forward. I have built many rears for race cars, street cars and off road. WaveTrac has proven best in almost all circumstances.
Aernoudt Bottemanne I dont want a Limited Slip that needs a brake application to engage. Thats like needing to run backwards before you can run forward. Could you imagine watching a nascar race where the cars have to race one lap in reverse before the race starts. that would be funny
Helical are torque multipliers, the wavetrac is functioning as advertised. Need a stability control system that applies brakes to the spinning wheel so that torque will be multiplied to the wheel with grip.
@@IgorBagayevWavetrac has the additional friction disc and wave hub to help, but at the end of the day it is very similar to Quaife design, even priced very similarly.
Thanks for that! This is clear as day and not surprising: helical diffs behave like open diffs on uneven traction. Wavetrac has an internal friction trick that makes it not totally catastrophic but it’s still pretty horrible. Only a preloaded plated differential (ZF or Salisbury, depending on who you talk to, 🇩🇪 or 🇬🇧) will positively lock with one wheel on ice (or in the air). Thanks again I was a hair from getting one but I’ll stick to Drexler from Germany.
I put a Truetrac in my F150 2WD & i noticed it could hunt for traction on snow and ice, meaning i could feel a left to right to left to right surging in the axle power, shifting from tire to tire. In other words it could dig straight down because it starts acting like an open diff and that higher rate spinning wheel is speed multiplying like an open diff. digging a hole quickly - which you don't want. I got stuck in my snow & ice covered driveway when it started ''hunting'' like this. It reacted with a left wheel to right side shift and dug a hole before i could react to it. It's lightning quick. My thinking at the time was, it isn't preloaded at all and a shortcoming in low traction situations.
well i did some testing finally on my wavetrac as may be oil has something to do with its performance. old dif oil test- this stuff was put in when i got the wave trac - not sure what it was but i would say it is 75/140 synthetic with friction modifier- - when i drained it you could see what looked like friction modifier come out at the very end (remember what it looks like from when i put it in once on the old mechanical clutch dif - sort of gold colour in the oil) my testing was done by driving up a steep wet grassy hill (200m long and very steep) and having one wheel on the concrete drive way old dif oil - when cold and heaps thicker it didn't perform noticeably different to when it was well and truly warmed up and thinner (big viscosity change). so i changed the oil to REDLINE 75W/140 NS GL-5 GEAR OIL (RED57104) - which has no additive (friction modifier which sort of makes things slipperyer (sic) - but it much more complicated than that) Same - no noticeable difference between cold and hot (thick and thin viscosity) but it did seam to improve the lock up a bit. with the old oil i would get no spinning of the wheel on the concrete (it still got a bit of drive but the grass wheel spun up quite a bit) with the new stuff i would get slight wheel spin (scrubbing) from the tyre on the concrete. however if the grass wheel dropped into a hole or i gave it heaps it would turn into a single spinner :(. if i could get them to both spin it would keep them spinning even on change of surface or if i droped it in a hole but once it starts single spinning your screwed - you have to back right off and then have another go. I figure the slight improvement was due to not having friction modifier in the diff any more - however there might still be some in there (you dont clean the gears you just drain what you can). so if you have a torsen style diff - make sure you go with oil without the additive (can be hard to find as most syn products have it in there) still a bit annoyed with the wavetrac. they make a big deal about how it wont single spin under no load situations but its clear from my experience and others on the internet that its not true. It also makes sense why they dont have a video of a wavetrac vehicle do a traction test with one wheel on rollers as it would fail. - something like this would be great ua-cam.com/video/LFJI0tLMVpI/v-deo.html its kind of annoying as its easy to try and gas it out of an intersection (say turning right onto a road) and the inside will just light up, but then as you ease off and the suspension settles it will transfer and bang, you have 2 wheels going but its not progressive. I had such high hopes. On the plus side, when it works it works great and is quiet and very smooth. The one work around i have found is that i leave traction control on. on the fg ute i have (700-800 hp), this creates enough drag on the inside brake when a wheel goes to spin to get the transfer working as it should. you get a bit of spin and a bit of wiggle (no big skids as it will kill the fun) but man, if you get it right with traction control just doing a little bit, just enough to do the transfer, its bloody fast and hooks up very well. I dont know if its possible but if you could program the traction control to not touch the engine power and just brake a single wheel if it is spinning more than say 30% more than the other wheel - that would be awesome (i guess that is what some e-diff's do) - doing just enough to keep the torsen working as it should. a bit all over the place but hopefully helpful.
Don't misunderstand the wavetrac for a locking differential. I performed the same exact test on this same patch of ice with my F150 with clutch-style LSD and it did the EXACT same thing. Allegedly, a typical helical differential like a Quaife or MFactory would not have moved forward at all. Additionally, there is a slight incline to my driveway here, the test is done with the car trying to move forward up the slope on the ice.
How so? truetrac is just a typical helical gear driven diff like a quaife. It will not perform in a zero traction situation. The wavetrac has a design that starts with the typical helical design and adds the "wave" feature to address the zero traction weakness of other helical diffs.
Ryan Kneeshaw I have a truetrac and it does act like this. Granted in zero traction nothing will resolve a lack of friction. One wheel must have some friction
my wavetrac does the same thing - the wavetrac thing doesnt make it a locker. You get a little bit of forward momentum if one wheel is lifted or on low grip surface (more than a standard torsen??? i dont know) it seams to work better at faster speeds but still, if you are driving at 60kmph (35mph) and one wheel hits a piece of ice or a tram line, that wheel will spin up - same as if you are doing a u-turn or making a sharp low speed hairpin, it can spin up the inside wheel (but if you stay in it it seems to eventually get both going . if your on a surface thats relatively consistent it works really well - good grip and very straight. One thing i have recently thought of is that it can be hard to get synthetic dif oil these days without friction modifier in it and I have a feeling that maybe thats what went in mine when installed - so i have got some 75-140 without the additive (REDLINE 75W/140 NS GL-5 GEAR OIL (RED57104) and will see if that makes a difference. All that being said, i have over 800hp in my falcon ute (australia) and it does work great on normal roads. You can hang the tail out at well over 100kmph with confidence (straight or through corners) - seems just the low speed stuff suffers.
This video makes me think the wavetrac is doing nothing. This test is not a zero traction situation. The wheel on the ice still had a small amount of traction, as shown by the fact that the car moved forward when both wheels were on ice. A regular helical diff would transfer a multiple of the available ice traction to the wheel on dry pavement, which is exactly what happened. I would have expected the wavetrac device to do send a lot more torque to the wheel with traction than is shown here. It's better than an open diff for sure, but I don't see how it's better than any other torsen.
Yeah, I agree. that last shot where one wheel is on ice, the one with the least traction starts spinning. I was under the impression that the Wavetrac's 'wave' was supposed to bind when under differential loads and prevent this from happening.
starting up from 0 is very different than driving and hitting ice. there is a large torque difference and the speed of engine is not constant. Clutch based are best for all around winter sludge.
Looks to me like it works perfectly, an open diff wouldn’t have moved you forward at all in the second case. And this test is very extreme when not using studded tires
For the people saying this limited-slip differential doesn’t work, you’re basically spinning a worm gear with a cog. With a tire in the air, or on glare ice, you can spin a worm gear. Add any external grip and it becomes impossible to drive the worm backwards, and so most power has to be routed across both tires. With enough difference in speed or even acceleration, the car would move off the ice, likewise just a little handbrake would also force lockup. This video explains this well. ua-cam.com/video/x40WGUtdaLI/v-deo.html
the only good ones for bad weather is the CLUTCH type and WAVETRAC. so being that you "saw no difference" sadly, is the whole point of the Wavetrac vs. Queef whatever one. Clutch is really good actually for most any condition, just not the best track cornering times compared to queeaf whatever. However, you are demonstrating here that the Wavetrac is superior to the quoef one as it behaves just like a clutch-type diff in ice and snow. Which is why it's a must upgrade for daily driving sports cars. I am getting one for my new 2023/4 JCW mini hardtop (wavetrac)
I am looking for an lsd for my fwd honda to improve offroad traction ie when one wheel is in the air. I am used to my old truck lsd which locked for a quarter turn any time a wheel spun a quarter. I heard the wavetrac worked in zero traction but this video clearly shows it doesn't.
it does. ice and he has improper tires. he has all season random tires not ice and snow. Mud is much higher of a friction coefficient than ice which is almost 0 under pressure. Wavetrac will get your job done in the mud for 2 wheel drive.
this wavetrack diff probably isn't working right because I've seen the parts disassembled. You'd have to wear the preload springs and the sliding lock hump completely in order to get THIS result. And since it's all submerged in oil, I don't understand how you could do that. This looks like a completely open diff.
I'm laughing at the amount of people that don't realize this a positive test for a Wavetrac over a Quaife. The Quaife wouldn't have moved straight off the ice, the wheel with no traction would have taken all the power. If you want better you'll need to go clutch type.
I've been reading all the comments and there's lots of nay-sayers who seem to be quite uneducated on the LSD matter, saying that it operates like an open diff. But you're on an incline and on snow with 4season rubber, so it explains a lot. And if you say your plated LSD F150 acts exactly the same, that might be believable. But does your F150 also drive on 4 season tyres? Even a plated LSD has some slip, it's in the name lol. Anyway, I've been looking into LSD for my E39 530d because I actually want to get a move on in the snow we recently had and have some occasional fun in the summer on a wet parking lot. But upon further research on plated LSD, they do require special oil and the plates need to be changed from time to time. Now, changing LSD plates, that's not something I would love to do frequently. So this wavetrac with it's patented middle thingy which mimics a plated LSD has caught my attention recently. What would be the locking percentage of wavetrac? About 25% like a normal plated lsd? Would you actually recommend a wavetrac? Has it been making some extra noise or whatever? Also the only thing that could wear out is that carbon fibre puck and the waved thing. But they give lifetime warranty on that... But lest we forget BMW also says their manual transmission oil is also lifetime... Sooo
I've been happy with the wavetrac. I've had no issues with it. Worst case, it performs at least as well as any torque biasing mechanical differential (quaife, mfactory, etc), best case it helps slightly in zero traction conditions without the noise of other differential solutions.
@@omfgwtfbbq90 no, I'm saying wavetrac is at least as good as any helical torque biasing differential. Probably better. Is it as good as a played diff? It's as good as my f150's plated LSD. I think you can get more aggressive with plated LSD, but at the cost of noise and maintenance. The wavetrac is a great diff for a car that spends any time on the street and isn't rebuilt often.
I know this was from a while ago but would love to know how the wavetrac handles dry / ice when you hit it on a high speed turn. Does it initiate over or under steer depending on whether the outside or inside wheel hits ice first?
That does not look like a limited slip diff at all. I thought it was supposed to put power to the wheel with the traction.... It clearly wasn't. Its acting like an open diff.....
Hello, Your car seems to behave like a car with no lsd. I'm not really convinced with the superiority from the Wavetrac over the Quaife helical, I think my Quaife would behave exactly as yours in this situation. I heard about the wavetrac just after i bought the Quaife for my rally car and firstly I thought that I had made the wrong choice. After some hundred kilometers racing it, I think that these helical diffs are very good when the grip is the same on both side of the car.
The spinning wheel is spinning at damn near 30~40 mph ... while the vehicle is moving at like 3 mph. An open diff car would have inched forward the same way as this quote unquote example. Hard fail.
Id say it is limited. Just like the limited slip in the video ) Next time try to jerk the handbrake to see torque shift. It seems it does not want to transfer torque at all on ice. It will be interesting to se if it will grab and continue or loose the torque once more.
Thats an interesting idea, I'll definitely have to try that. There is some torque that moves the car forward, which is identical behavior to the clutch-style LSD in my F150 that I tested with off-camera. But the wavetrac is still not a locker so it won't "lock up". Like a clutch-based LSD, the larger the difference in wheel speed between the two sides the less torque arrives at the wheel with traction. If you notice in the video the car moved forward more when I kept the wheel speed lower, and moved slower when I applied heavy throttle and high wheel spin on the zero traction wheel. Also note that there is an incline to my driveway, and the car is trying to go up-hill to get off the ice patch, that's hard to tell by watching the video.
lmao i swear to god ive done this exact same test on my e46 325i open diff with traction on multiple time and it reacts the same way, looks like the wavetrac is not really worth the money
Hm.. When one wheele on ice it didnt seem to go much more forward then it would with an open differential? Would it be different with say a queife diff or some other brands?
I wish I had an open diff car to test with that day. But I'm confident it wouldn't have gone anywhere. Its hard to tell in the video but my driveway is sloped and the car is driving up an incline to get off that ice. Also, I have an F150 with a clutch-style LSD and put it on the same patch of ice that day and it behaved the exact same way. I wish I would have captured that on video too. And actually, in both cases, both the clutch-style LSD in the F150 and the wavetrac in the BMW, the more throttle I gave it, the less I moved forward. If I was light on the throttle, keeping the differential in wheel spin between sides closer together, the vehicles moved forward very well. I didn't really expect that, but upon further research, that makes sense. I used to have a Quaife (which is a helical LSD) in my old Ford Contour, and if one wheel was on ice, I wasn't going anywhere. The wavetrac is not and will not be a locker. It combines the zero-traction-to-one-wheel benefits of a clutch-style LSD with the smooth predictable distribution of power and zero maintenance benefits of a helical LSD.
Ryan Kneeshaw Hmm.. I thought that the quaife diff where supposed to push you forward if one wheele slips, thats what they say it will do.. Would like to have one in my E39, for better winter traction. But then the quaife isnt for me I think..
The quaife will move you forward if one wheel slips, as long as that slipping wheel still has some kind of traction. But if you lift a wheel or are on super slick ice, which results in zero traction to that one wheel, all your power goes out. When I had the quaife in my old car it was still great in the snow and dry, it really made the car pull nicely in the turns, but if I was on the sheerest slickest ice it didnt do much to help.
Gear operated diffs (like wavetrac ir torsens) are "locked" and they "open" due to speed difference. F.e. you go on a turn, steer left, right wheel spins faster and "opens" the diff. This diff should start like welded and I suggest you weld it.
Gedas alekveravičius that is all wrong. a LSD is not locked. and welding the diff to make it a spool is a terrible idea unless you are full time off road or full time drag strip.
i dont think your lsd is working right my tacoma has a mechanical lsd and doesnt do this at all they both spin at the same time this is weird never seen an lsd do this
Your CS Guy most definitely, the car slides properly with the Wavetrac. With open diff just one wheel breaks loose most of the time and it's hard an awkward to try to control the power slide
For people who are only interested for racing purposes on dry pavement they are perfect though. For the daily drivers who want to drive their cars in snow, yeah Quaife is not the best, but sometimes still can be worth it.
Dude.... this is not even close to a mechanical lsd. Example: My e36 M3 has 45% lock, same situation it would be spinning BOTH wheels forward. This solution is identical to a open diff. I don't want to be an ass, but it is what it is, your video looks identical to how a open diff behaves.
Konrad C I guarantee you your mechanical works exactly like this in this kind of situation, at minimum. I've owned open, quaife, and clutch based LSD. You're welcome to capture it on video and show me wrong
Konrad C that is a different scenario, there is less traction to the right wheel in that video but there is some traction. The LSD will behave differently with zero traction. In my video I am on sheer ice and on an uphill incline, as close to zero as you can get.
One wheel on ice, the diff is doing just what it is supposed to do... the car moves forward and straight up the slope. With both wheels on ice it acts like any diff. Both wheel spin, but if one finds traction it will then move straight forward. I have built many rears for race cars, street cars and off road. WaveTrac has proven best in almost all circumstances.
great to know! i am going to add one to a brand new Mini JCW 3 door this fall. wavetrac seems most sensible.
I was considering a wavetrack but eyeballing an OS Giken Superlock now. (BMW 650i e63).
Finally a video showing a real life scenario. Wavetrac LSD failed in my opinion. Makes me think twice about going this route now.
Marlon Ostil that’s because you don’t understand that an lsd needs a preload to lock...
hit brake once while throttling and you get desired preload. a tip from a buddy of mine
My opinion, if you think in LSD, choose Quaife....... ok pay a little more but you have a real LSD
So if you’re racing hit the brakes first and the lsd will work. thanks for the advice
Aernoudt Bottemanne I dont want a Limited Slip that needs a brake application to engage. Thats like needing to run backwards before you can run forward. Could you imagine watching a nascar race where the cars have to race one lap in reverse before the race starts. that would be funny
this is the amazing upgrade of the predecessor Torsen LSD & i think this is most precise & reliable LSD
Helical are torque multipliers, the wavetrac is functioning as advertised. Need a stability control system that applies brakes to the spinning wheel so that torque will be multiplied to the wheel with grip.
But then it will work just like any other helical lsd from MFactory or Quaife.
@@IgorBagayevWavetrac has the additional friction disc and wave hub to help, but at the end of the day it is very similar to Quaife design, even priced very similarly.
Thanks for that! This is clear as day and not surprising: helical diffs behave like open diffs on uneven traction. Wavetrac has an internal friction trick that makes it not totally catastrophic but it’s still pretty horrible. Only a preloaded plated differential (ZF or Salisbury, depending on who you talk to, 🇩🇪 or 🇬🇧) will positively lock with one wheel on ice (or in the air). Thanks again I was a hair from getting one but I’ll stick to Drexler from Germany.
I put a Truetrac in my F150 2WD & i noticed it could hunt for traction on snow and ice, meaning i could feel a left to right to left to right surging in the axle power, shifting from tire to tire. In other words it could dig straight down because it starts acting like an open diff and that higher rate spinning wheel is speed multiplying like an open diff. digging a hole quickly - which you don't want.
I got stuck in my snow & ice covered driveway when it started ''hunting'' like this. It reacted with a left wheel to right side shift and dug a hole before i could react to it. It's lightning quick. My thinking at the time was, it isn't preloaded at all and a shortcoming in low traction situations.
I noticed a very similar behavior with my Wavetrac but I did not consider how a typical helical would behave. Thanks for the post.
well i did some testing finally on my wavetrac as may be oil has something to do with its performance.
old dif oil test- this stuff was put in when i got the wave trac - not sure what it was but i would say it is 75/140 synthetic with friction modifier- - when i drained it you could see what looked like friction modifier come out at the very end (remember what it looks like from when i put it in once on the old mechanical clutch dif - sort of gold colour in the oil)
my testing was done by driving up a steep wet grassy hill (200m long and very steep) and having one wheel on the concrete drive way
old dif oil - when cold and heaps thicker it didn't perform noticeably different to when it was well and truly warmed up and thinner (big viscosity change).
so i changed the oil to REDLINE 75W/140 NS GL-5 GEAR OIL (RED57104) - which has no additive (friction modifier which sort of makes things slipperyer (sic) - but it much more complicated than that)
Same - no noticeable difference between cold and hot (thick and thin viscosity) but it did seam to improve the lock up a bit. with the old oil i would get no spinning of the wheel on the concrete (it still got a bit of drive but the grass wheel spun up quite a bit)
with the new stuff i would get slight wheel spin (scrubbing) from the tyre on the concrete.
however if the grass wheel dropped into a hole or i gave it heaps it would turn into a single spinner :(.
if i could get them to both spin it would keep them spinning even on change of surface or if i droped it in a hole but once it starts single spinning your screwed - you have to back right off and then have another go.
I figure the slight improvement was due to not having friction modifier in the diff any more - however there might still be some in there (you dont clean the gears you just drain what you can). so if you have a torsen style diff - make sure you go with oil without the additive (can be hard to find as most syn products have it in there)
still a bit annoyed with the wavetrac. they make a big deal about how it wont single spin under no load situations but its clear from my experience and others on the internet that its not true. It also makes sense why they dont have a video of a wavetrac vehicle do a traction test with one wheel on rollers as it would fail. - something like this would be great ua-cam.com/video/LFJI0tLMVpI/v-deo.html
its kind of annoying as its easy to try and gas it out of an intersection (say turning right onto a road) and the inside will just light up, but then as you ease off and the suspension settles it will transfer and bang, you have 2 wheels going but its not progressive. I had such high hopes. On the plus side, when it works it works great and is quiet and very smooth.
The one work around i have found is that i leave traction control on. on the fg ute i have (700-800 hp), this creates enough drag on the inside brake when a wheel goes to spin to get the transfer working as it should. you get a bit of spin and a bit of wiggle (no big skids as it will kill the fun) but man, if you get it right with traction control just doing a little bit, just enough to do the transfer, its bloody fast and hooks up very well. I dont know if its possible but if you could program the traction control to not touch the engine power and just brake a single wheel if it is spinning more than say 30% more than the other wheel - that would be awesome (i guess that is what some e-diff's do) - doing just enough to keep the torsen working as it should.
a bit all over the place but hopefully helpful.
i believe wavetrac said it should not be used with "friction modifiers"?
the last half of this video is damning evidence against a wavetrac if you ask me.
Don't misunderstand the wavetrac for a locking differential. I performed the same exact test on this same patch of ice with my F150 with clutch-style LSD and it did the EXACT same thing. Allegedly, a typical helical differential like a Quaife or MFactory would not have moved forward at all. Additionally, there is a slight incline to my driveway here, the test is done with the car trying to move forward up the slope on the ice.
could you make a video with the locking diff?
or with both for comparison
Get Shrekt a truetrac would do much better
How so? truetrac is just a typical helical gear driven diff like a quaife. It will not perform in a zero traction situation. The wavetrac has a design that starts with the typical helical design and adds the "wave" feature to address the zero traction weakness of other helical diffs.
Ryan Kneeshaw I have a truetrac and it does act like this. Granted in zero traction nothing will resolve a lack of friction. One wheel must have some friction
my wavetrac does the same thing - the wavetrac thing doesnt make it a locker. You get a little bit of forward momentum if one wheel is lifted or on low grip surface (more than a standard torsen??? i dont know) it seams to work better at faster speeds but still, if you are driving at 60kmph (35mph) and one wheel hits a piece of ice or a tram line, that wheel will spin up - same as if you are doing a u-turn or making a sharp low speed hairpin, it can spin up the inside wheel (but if you stay in it it seems to eventually get both going . if your on a surface thats relatively consistent it works really well - good grip and very straight.
One thing i have recently thought of is that it can be hard to get synthetic dif oil these days without friction modifier in it and I have a feeling that maybe thats what went in mine when installed - so i have got some 75-140 without the additive (REDLINE 75W/140 NS GL-5 GEAR OIL (RED57104) and will see if that makes a difference.
All that being said, i have over 800hp in my falcon ute (australia) and it does work great on normal roads. You can hang the tail out at well over 100kmph with confidence (straight or through corners) - seems just the low speed stuff suffers.
Did the oil change things for you?
Does the red line oil help the diff lock a little more?
This video makes me think the wavetrac is doing nothing.
This test is not a zero traction situation. The wheel on the ice still had a small amount of traction, as shown by the fact that the car moved forward when both wheels were on ice.
A regular helical diff would transfer a multiple of the available ice traction to the wheel on dry pavement, which is exactly what happened. I would have expected the wavetrac device to do send a lot more torque to the wheel with traction than is shown here.
It's better than an open diff for sure, but I don't see how it's better than any other torsen.
Yeah, I agree. that last shot where one wheel is on ice, the one with the least traction starts spinning. I was under the impression that the Wavetrac's 'wave' was supposed to bind when under differential loads and prevent this from happening.
I'm looking for lsd right now, and to see the 1 wheel on ice and 1 on tarmac to only just push the car is shocking.
Plate type it is then 100%
starting up from 0 is very different than driving and hitting ice. there is a large torque difference and the speed of engine is not constant. Clutch based are best for all around winter sludge.
This is all i needed to know to fit one on my 140i 👍🏽
It's like an open diff
Looks to me like it works perfectly, an open diff wouldn’t have moved you forward at all in the second case. And this test is very extreme when not using studded tires
very cool demonstration mate
For the people saying this limited-slip differential doesn’t work, you’re basically spinning a worm gear with a cog. With a tire in the air, or on glare ice, you can spin a worm gear.
Add any external grip and it becomes impossible to drive the worm backwards, and so most power has to be routed across both tires. With enough difference in speed or even acceleration, the car would move off the ice, likewise just a little handbrake would also force lockup.
This video explains this well. ua-cam.com/video/x40WGUtdaLI/v-deo.html
the only good ones for bad weather is the CLUTCH type and WAVETRAC. so being that you "saw no difference" sadly, is the whole point of the Wavetrac vs. Queef whatever one. Clutch is really good actually for most any condition, just not the best track cornering times compared to queeaf whatever. However, you are demonstrating here that the Wavetrac is superior to the quoef one as it behaves just like a clutch-type diff in ice and snow. Which is why it's a must upgrade for daily driving sports cars. I am getting one for my new 2023/4 JCW mini hardtop (wavetrac)
I am looking for an lsd for my fwd honda to improve offroad traction ie when one wheel is in the air. I am used to my old truck lsd which locked for a quarter turn any time a wheel spun a quarter.
I heard the wavetrac worked in zero traction but this video clearly shows it doesn't.
it does. ice and he has improper tires. he has all season random tires not ice and snow. Mud is much higher of a friction coefficient than ice which is almost 0 under pressure. Wavetrac will get your job done in the mud for 2 wheel drive.
Yes WaveTrac surprised me that with one wheel on tar the car still didn't launch.... Would love to see a locked/welded diff videoed in same situation.
@@michaely6665Its not hard to understand how a welded diff would have behaved in the same situation
Looks like it works the same as any of them.
Did a representative of wavetrac ever contact you or reply to any of these posts to defend themselves??
this wavetrack diff probably isn't working right because I've seen the parts disassembled. You'd have to wear the preload springs and the sliding lock hump completely in order to get THIS result. And since it's all submerged in oil, I don't understand how you could do that. This looks like a completely open diff.
I'm laughing at the amount of people that don't realize this a positive test for a Wavetrac over a Quaife. The Quaife wouldn't have moved straight off the ice, the wheel with no traction would have taken all the power. If you want better you'll need to go clutch type.
I've been reading all the comments and there's lots of nay-sayers who seem to be quite uneducated on the LSD matter, saying that it operates like an open diff. But you're on an incline and on snow with 4season rubber, so it explains a lot. And if you say your plated LSD F150 acts exactly the same, that might be believable. But does your F150 also drive on 4 season tyres?
Even a plated LSD has some slip, it's in the name lol.
Anyway, I've been looking into LSD for my E39 530d because I actually want to get a move on in the snow we recently had and have some occasional fun in the summer on a wet parking lot.
But upon further research on plated LSD, they do require special oil and the plates need to be changed from time to time. Now, changing LSD plates, that's not something I would love to do frequently.
So this wavetrac with it's patented middle thingy which mimics a plated LSD has caught my attention recently.
What would be the locking percentage of wavetrac? About 25% like a normal plated lsd?
Would you actually recommend a wavetrac? Has it been making some extra noise or whatever?
Also the only thing that could wear out is that carbon fibre puck and the waved thing. But they give lifetime warranty on that... But lest we forget BMW also says their manual transmission oil is also lifetime... Sooo
I've been happy with the wavetrac. I've had no issues with it. Worst case, it performs at least as well as any torque biasing mechanical differential (quaife, mfactory, etc), best case it helps slightly in zero traction conditions without the noise of other differential solutions.
@@rkneeshaw so you're saying a plated LSD is much better than Wavetrac?
@@omfgwtfbbq90 no, I'm saying wavetrac is at least as good as any helical torque biasing differential. Probably better. Is it as good as a played diff? It's as good as my f150's plated LSD. I think you can get more aggressive with plated LSD, but at the cost of noise and maintenance. The wavetrac is a great diff for a car that spends any time on the street and isn't rebuilt often.
@@rkneeshaw it's meant for my daily, so it would make more sense than plated LSD.
Anyway when were the plates of your F-150 changed last time?
@@omfgwtfbbq90 they never were, I sold the truck after a while. I always wondered with over 100,000 mi on the clock if it was overdue for a rebuild.
I know this was from a while ago but would love to know how the wavetrac handles dry / ice when you hit it on a high speed turn. Does it initiate over or under steer depending on whether the outside or inside wheel hits ice first?
With Quaife ATB you would gently pull the handbrake lever (if U got one... U should).
That does not look like a limited slip diff at all. I thought it was supposed to put power to the wheel with the traction.... It clearly wasn't. Its acting like an open diff.....
Where is the Quaife compare?
So would I be better off doing an M3 axel/diff swap instead of the Wavetrac LS?
Hello,
Your car seems to behave like a car with no lsd. I'm not really convinced with the superiority from the Wavetrac over the Quaife helical, I think my Quaife would behave exactly as yours in this situation.
I heard about the wavetrac just after i bought the Quaife for my rally car and firstly I thought that I had made the wrong choice.
After some hundred kilometers racing it, I think that these helical diffs are very good when the grip is the same on both side of the car.
The spinning wheel is spinning at damn near 30~40 mph ... while the vehicle is moving at like 3 mph. An open diff car would have inched forward the same way as this quote unquote example.
Hard fail.
The video displays an open diff!
Nope
Then it is broken or defective!
Your knowledge of diffs is broken
Id say it is limited. Just like the limited slip in the video )
Next time try to jerk the handbrake to see torque shift. It seems it does not want to transfer torque at all on ice. It will be interesting to se if it will grab and continue or loose the torque once more.
Thats an interesting idea, I'll definitely have to try that.
There
is some torque that moves the car forward, which is identical behavior
to the clutch-style LSD in my F150 that I tested with off-camera. But
the wavetrac is still not a locker so it won't "lock up". Like a
clutch-based LSD, the larger the difference in wheel speed between the
two sides the less torque arrives at the wheel with traction. If you
notice in the video the car moved forward more when I kept the wheel
speed lower, and moved slower when I applied heavy throttle and high
wheel spin on the zero traction wheel.
Also note that there is an
incline to my driveway, and the car is trying to go up-hill to get off
the ice patch, that's hard to tell by watching the video.
lmao i swear to god ive done this exact same test on my e46 325i open diff with traction on multiple time and it reacts the same way, looks like the wavetrac is not really worth the money
people are not thinking at all
18 inch wheels?
yep
Hm.. When one wheele on ice it didnt seem to go much more forward then it would with an open differential? Would it be different with say a queife diff or some other brands?
I wish I had an open diff car to test with that day. But I'm confident it wouldn't have gone anywhere. Its hard to tell in the video but my driveway is sloped and the car is driving up an incline to get off that ice. Also, I have an F150 with a clutch-style LSD and put it on the same patch of ice that day and it behaved the exact same way. I wish I would have captured that on video too.
And actually, in both cases, both the clutch-style LSD in the F150 and the wavetrac in the BMW, the more throttle I gave it, the less I moved forward. If I was light on the throttle, keeping the differential in wheel spin between sides closer together, the vehicles moved forward very well. I didn't really expect that, but upon further research, that makes sense.
I used to have a Quaife (which is a helical LSD) in my old Ford Contour, and if one wheel was on ice, I wasn't going anywhere.
The wavetrac is not and will not be a locker. It combines the zero-traction-to-one-wheel benefits of a clutch-style LSD with the smooth predictable distribution of power and zero maintenance benefits of a helical LSD.
Ryan Kneeshaw Hmm.. I thought that the quaife diff where supposed to push you forward if one wheele slips, thats what they say it will do..
Would like to have one in my E39, for better winter traction. But then the quaife isnt for me I think..
The quaife will move you forward if one wheel slips, as long as that slipping wheel still has some kind of traction. But if you lift a wheel or are on super slick ice, which results in zero traction to that one wheel, all your power goes out. When I had the quaife in my old car it was still great in the snow and dry, it really made the car pull nicely in the turns, but if I was on the sheerest slickest ice it didnt do much to help.
So the one you got here would actually be better then, if the whole point is to get best traction on snow/ice.. :-)
Correct, the improved traction in zero-grip situations is why I chose the wavetrac this time around instead of the quaife
Gear operated diffs (like wavetrac ir torsens) are "locked" and they "open" due to speed difference. F.e. you go on a turn, steer left, right wheel spins faster and "opens" the diff. This diff should start like welded and I suggest you weld it.
Gedas alekveravičius that is all wrong. a LSD is not locked. and welding the diff to make it a spool is a terrible idea unless you are full time off road or full time drag strip.
Ryan Kneeshaw But welded diff little bit more tire wear for a LOT more fun in winter (also grip) is worth it
Wow!
in queste condizioni non funziona...
i dont think your lsd is working right my tacoma has a mechanical lsd and doesnt do this at all they both spin at the same time this is weird never seen an lsd do this
do a 0 to 60!
Did you see any difference between open diff and Wavetrac while some sliding actions?
Your CS Guy most definitely, the car slides properly with the Wavetrac. With open diff just one wheel breaks loose most of the time and it's hard an awkward to try to control the power slide
Maybe the BMW doesn't really have a Wavetrac?
No, it 100% has a wavetrac installed.
Sorry but ATB diffs are just loss of money.
I knew it ! TOTAL bullshit. There's now way I'll ever purchase this.
The old preload story. When you need it it’s not there. Those type of lsd diffs (atb) are quite useless.
For people who are only interested for racing purposes on dry pavement they are perfect though. For the daily drivers who want to drive their cars in snow, yeah Quaife is not the best, but sometimes still can be worth it.
Dude.... this is not even close to a mechanical lsd. Example: My e36 M3 has 45% lock, same situation it would be spinning BOTH wheels forward. This solution is identical to a open diff. I don't want to be an ass, but it is what it is, your video looks identical to how a open diff behaves.
Konrad C I guarantee you your mechanical works exactly like this in this kind of situation, at minimum. I've owned open, quaife, and clutch based LSD. You're welcome to capture it on video and show me wrong
I guess I ll have to, my m3 has NEVER done a one wheel peel. ever
And it wouldn't, unless you had one wheel on a zero grip surface and applied a lot of throttle. 45% lock is still going to allow some slip.
ua-cam.com/video/1T5H0PU8USQ/v-deo.html
Pretty massive difference. Again, don't mean to be an ass, but what you have is nothing like a limited slip
Konrad C that is a different scenario, there is less traction to the right wheel in that video but there is some traction. The LSD will behave differently with zero traction. In my video I am on sheer ice and on an uphill incline, as close to zero as you can get.