Unfortunately, this is just not correct. We were on the track this weekend, and the rear diff had a failure(I will elaborate in a bit). The car has a cat back exhaust and out prototype intakes. The tire/wheel combo is 18x10et20 on all 4. The tires are Toyo R888 255(f) and 295(r)s. Ambient temp in the 80s'.
I was able to run the first 20 minutes with out incident. The second session I started to push the car a little more, say 75% to the limit. The car started to get a little loose on turn in and hard braking. Once I pulled off the track you could smell the fluid. The diff was also making a ton of noise on light turning in the pits/garage area. You could feel the wheel try to lock up.
Basically, the oil got so hot it melted the drain plug magnet. When fluid gets that hot, it loses its viscosity. The OS Giken diff then did not know how to lock the plates correctly, and we had to end the race weekend. The bearings and races looked good, but the bearing in the final drive assy is binding from excessive heat.
We are in the process of making a kit, but I would encourage anyone who is planning on tracking the car....get a cooler solution ASAP.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Scott @ RA
Having track and road raced Z's more than probably anyone around..... I can tell you that honestly there is no need whatsoever for a differential cooler on about 98.9999% of the cars out there.... Unless you are doing endurance racing for 12+ hours on end, non stop, there is no need for a diff cooler. In fact, most of the time the differential will work better and rob less power from the drive train once the fluid is heated up to the operating temperatures.... I have NEVER seen a differential problem caused by over heating the fluid on these cars.
So to say a diff cooler is overkill would be a huge understatement. In most cases it would be counter productive as well as being just one other thing to have a problem with (leaky fittings, bad fan, bad relay, blown fuse, etc.) to be honest.
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