[moengel]

4/ Buy a new car

I'm totally with you, Simon. Having driven rear wheel drive cars most of my life, the front wheel spin drive in the Forester drives me nuts. Swapping in a DCCD would be pretty cool. I have no idea what's required to do that but if you figure it out, let us know.

 

[moengel]

Excuse the simpleton's approach, but couldn't you swap the front and rear sections of the centre diff internals to reverse the f/r bias to the opposite of what it currently is?

Unfortunately, no.

would a rear biased diff give a better feel?

Yes. It would cause the car to oversteer rather than understeer when throttle is applied in a corner. Rear bias allows the driver to steer the car using throttle inputs.

 

[moengel]

Foresters equipped with a manual transmission use a viscous center differential. Under normal driving conditions (i.e. no wheels are slipping), the system supplies equal torque split between the front and the back. Only when one end starts slipping does the differential begin to compensate. It's a symmetrical system to start so, if you flip it, in theory, it would work exactly the same.

Think of two plates held together by friction surrounded by fluid. Each plate is connected to an input shaft. One shaft goes to the front wheels and one shaft goes to the rear wheels. When the front tires slip, the plate connected to the front wheel input shaft spins faster than the plate connected to the rear wheel input shaft. This difference in speed shears the liquid inside the diff and heats it up. This makes the liquid thicker, which increases its ability to transfer torque to the slower moving input shaft.

 

[moengel]

Simon,

If you can hook up a DCCD, it should give you a 35/65 torque split without any electrical/sensor input. This may be a pretty good option considering the alternatives.

Mark