[Shotimes] LSD Conversion KIT for the SHO? Any comments?

[Donald Mallinson]

Neno,

Good to hear from you again!

One of the first things we learned about the diff failures 
from the reports I got through this list and through the 
club/conventions is that abuse and burnouts are not always 
the cause of failure.  We have had several diff failures on 
cars that the owner, since new, claims has never spun a tire 
(hard to believe, but I knew some of these people, and they 
drove enthusiastically, but did baby their cars a lot and 
didn't race).  These cars got perfect maintenance and still 
the diff took out the transmission.

Certainly burnouts, slippage in snow/ice, hard racing all 
takes its toll, and there have been notable failures on 
these cars too.  There appears to be no real pattern for 
this type of failure, and it happens to both MTX and ATX SHOs.

Has anyone heard of similar failures with other FWD cars 
like the GP or Neon or the Nissan FWD cars without posi?

I still feel that if you are going to race a lot, a Quaife 
is good insurance, along with feeling great on the track. 
(again, not so much for drag racing as for road racing and 
autocross, my own car didn't seem to get any faster at the 
drags after installation of the quaife.  There is only so 
much traction available for FWD cars, and an open diff can 
quite often apply power to both tires if you have good start 
line manners).

The manufacturer of the diffs had no clue (maybe they were 
just denying something they might not want to be responsible 
for?).  The pins seem to shear, and my best guess is that 
the spider gears tend to gall on the shaft and shear off the 
pin.  Others have said they think the pins work their way 
out.  Same result either way.

One possible cure is to replace the soft steel roll pin with 
a bolt that is threaded on and loctited.  This is a rather 
expensive proposition requiring a good machine shop.  and 
you still have an open differential.  For my money, the 
Quaife is still nice insurance.

Don Mallinson



Neno Albert wrote:
> It comes down to a coin toss, Erik.. I beat the living bejesus out of my '91 AND my '89.. Both
> have/had solid diffs. My '91 was the first car i've ever owned to myself... Rod bearing took it's
> life. Ran organic it's entire life, which just so happens to be the cure to the common bearing
> failure to many. That SHO had 136K on the odo... First 60k done and the second done roughly 900mi
> before it's death. My '89? Neither blew up, yet... However i've manage to mangle the clutch with
> the SHO shop 3.2L. My buddy has a '91+ that has gone through 3 completely rebuilt trannies... All
> diff failures!!! He doesn't beat his car as bad as I did my '91 and is a fairly good MTX driver.
> Odd? VERY VERY much so!!! Even the smokey burnouts won't kill the trans. The only difference
> between my driving style and my buddies is that I always compensate for the one wheel with the
> load by breaking to the side that doesn't have the load on it and learning to control the
> "inbetween" of the power through the feel of the wheel... The bad bearing? I heard it knock at
> roughly 2:30PM and she was dead by 3:30~ if not 4 at the latest on the same day.. yes, less then 2
> hours.. yes, the worst feeling in the whole wide world!!!
> 
> Neno
> 
> --- Erik <masho95@charter.net> wrote:
> 
>>It all depends on how you drive your SHO.  One that sees burnouts every day
>>multiple times a day is more likely to see a differential pin failure than
>>rod bearing failure. Just because of the multiple forces of torque on the
>>pins daily.  Just my $.02