Gripper or Quaife

[Turbo steve]

As title what are peoples opinions?

 

[pingpong]

Road car quaife
'track car' quaife
race car gripper

 

[fixedgear]

Road car quaife
'track car' quaife
race car gripper

That's how I understand it also

 

[bashracing]

You can also get different final drive ratios for the gripper which is what convinced me

 

[Turbo steve]

So a road car with occasional track days .... Quaife

 

[MicKPM]

As above (although the Quaife isn't exactly s**t in a race car either).

The main thing you have to remember is that a Gripper is going to need maintenance which means removal of the gearbox and money! The Gripper also requires a specific grade oil where the Quaife is fit and forget, nor does it require anything more than TransELF NFJ to lubricate it. The Quaife will never be quite as good as the plated Gripper which is why they are the weapon of choice in actual motorsport applications where every small gain matters.

Mick

 

[bozothenutter]

Get wavetrak to make us a diff.
It's a 100% locking torsen diff

 

[mikekean]

I don't know why everyone bangs on about maintenance with the gripper, get one with fairly mild preload and ramps. Change the oil fairly frequently and I doubt you will ever have any reason to open the box up unless you are racing it are planning to do 100k miles on it. There are loads of cars that come with plate diffs from the factory that will do 100k+ miles with no issues, yes the lockup reduces over time but most will have moved on way before it gives any issues. That's my 2 pence anyway, id have no issues fitting a mile plate diff to a road car.

 

[dangerous dave]

I've pulled my plated diff out for the time being, I'm sure they're awesome on the track or if your running huge power and are struggling to get the power down...

In my case I've gone back to my oe engine due to problems and the gripper diff would just pi55 me off as it was quite loaded up, snatched a lot and even a roundabout was a pain..

I'm gonna hold onto it incase I decide to hunt for power but I wouldn't use it in a daily.. The pub talk points are strong but I wouldn't enjoy driving a plated diff in a road car.

 

[RS Charlie]

Get wavetrak to make us a diff.
It's a 100% locking torsen diff

Wavetracs are not built for every car. The cars that it can fit seem to be based on cars in America .

I don't know why everyone bangs on about maintenance with the gripper, get one with fairly mild preload and ramps. Change the oil fairly frequently and I doubt you will ever have any reason to open the box up unless you are racing it are planning to do 100k miles on it. There are loads of cars that come with plate diffs from the factory that will do 100k+ miles with no issues, yes the lockup reduces over time but most will have moved on way before it gives any issues. That's my 2 pence anyway, id have no issues fitting a mile plate diff to a road car.

When you are changing the oil as often as the engine oil it can become a pain. OK maybe I sound lazy but I rarely get time to keep two cars in check now with basic servicing alone!

As for OEM diffs the gearboxes will have taken into account the oil a plated diff needs thus potentially have the metals altered ; they are also known for wearing as well, or at least they are in the Porsche world in the 944 Turbo ; around 60k is said to be when they require adjustment. Even on my old 944 you could notice a slight 'clunk' when parking the car ; on a friend's Nissan S14A with a 2 way diff it was far worse!

However, setting a more gentle preload is a fair point .