Cusco 1.5 way LSD

hockysa

New Member
Hey guys just looking at the cusco LSD's

They have the 2 way and 1.5 way in type 'RS' and type 'MZ'

I found this
lsd-1.jpg


So RS = Street, MZ = Track?
But I still don't understand what the difference driving would be.
Can someone please shed some light.


Also any recommendations welcome.

My car is used as a daily and is a A70 with 1JZ-GTE.
I was initially wanting it for drifting but track does seem kinda fun now.
Also could anyone tell me from experience the difference between the 1.5 way and 2 way.

Would like to have a 2 way but it seems pretty bad on a daily

Cheers,

Benjamin
 

ma71supraturbo

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Mar 30, 2005
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RS and MZ are pretty much like you said -- RS for street, MZ for aggressive track. The difference is going to be in the severity of the clutch engagement. With an MZ, I wouldn't be surprised if you had some rear end chatter/tire scrub when pulling into and backing out of tight parking spots (or turning right at stop signs). An RS won't engage quite so harshly, which makes it better for daily driving.

1.5 vs 2-way is a different matter as both the MZ and RS can be set either way. The stock MK3 clutch-type LSD (on the MA70 -- JZA70s came with torsen) is a 1.5-way. It doesn't engage as strongly under braking/coasting as a 2-way. This helps the car turn in a little better, and is what I'd generally recommend. A 2-way engages more firmly under coasting/braking and can make the car understeer a bit on turn-in. If you're drifting, you can use this to your advantage by shift-locking (purposely mis-matching the revs when changing gears) and it'll help break the rear-end free so you can initiate your drifts earlier and have a bit more precise control over wheelspin.

A 2-way won't be much worse than a 1.5-way under daily driving. It may be slightly more prone to chatter when reversing out of a parking space (or coasting into it), but the difference won't be as much as between the engagement profiles in the RS and MZ units. A lot of people may claim 2-ways are much worse on the street from "firsthand experience" -- but they're generally talking about going from a tame stock 1.5-way to an aggressive 2-way.


So for serious drifting, I'd recommend the MZ 2-way. For serious drag racing I'd recommend the MZ 1.5-way. For recreational drifting, I'd recommend the RS 2-way, and for road racing/autocross, I'd generally recommend the RS 1.5-way (although the MZ 1.5-way may better suit aggressive driving styles or high-powered cars).


Which ever LSD you get, make sure you follow the break-in procedure (usually doing tight figure-8s for quite a while and then changing the fluid). The clutch plates will engage much harsher until they are broken in. Also keep in mind that most aftermarket LSDs recommend changing the LSD oil pretty frequently (every 2 oil changes or so).


there was a fantastic article in Sport Compact Car years ago where they went through the various LSDs and fine tuned them to make the best skidpad numbers for a 350Z (I think). I'm trying to find an archived version but no luck so far


Edit: Here's the part2 of that article (I think part 1 is where they went more into the diff, but the summarize it here):
http://www.modified.com/projectcars/0404scc_project_nissan_350z_part_2/index.html

Still can't find part1, but the same author (Dave Coleman) does a good job discussing LSDs in this article: http://www.modified.com/projectcars/0309_project_nissan_silvia_part_3/index.html
 
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hockysa

New Member
That is an excellent read.

I wish I was able to test drive my car with all the diffs to see what i like... if only there was a way or if i had more money lolz.


At this point im still unsure of whether I'll be doing more drifting than track work.

but thanks again for that it was a good read
 

hockysa

New Member
ma71supraturbo;1413535 said:
RS and MZ are pretty much like you said -- RS for street, MZ for track. The difference is going to be in the severity of the clutch engagement. With an MZ, I wouldn't be surprised if you had some rear end chatter/tire scrub when pulling into and backing out of tight parking spots (or turning right at stop signs). An RS won't engage quite so harshly, which makes it better for daily driving.

This harsh engagement. How does it affect track work and aggressive driving??

I'm assuming the harsh clutch engagement is something you would desire ont he track but I can't understand why or how it's a good thing.
In my mind smoother engagement would be better control and handling.

Please correct my understanding
 

ma71supraturbo

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After reading that MotoIQ article, I'd get the RS.




As for engagement... Basically what I mean is how much torque is needed to lock the differential. When you're grip driving around a corner, you'd like the outside wheel to be able to turn a little faster than the inside wheel. If the differential is locked, then both wheels turn the same speed and the inside wheel is either turning too fast, or the outside is turning too slow (or both). When this happens, the car doesn't like to turn as well. It would prefer to keep going straight so the tires aren't scrubbing. This causes understeer which lowers the total cornering grip. If you start spinning the rear tires slightly, you can counteract this understeer -- but because the rear tires are already losing grip, the total traction available goes down. Basically you can't corner as fast.


The goal of tuning an LSD for grip driving is to make the differential lock up whenever you apply more torque than you'd use to maintain speed around a corner. Say that it takes ~100rwhp/100rwtq to maintain speed around a 80mph corner at maximum grip. You'd like the differential to lock up whenever you applied 105rwhp/105rwtq.

If the differential is locking up at only 50rwtq, you would be understeering (or oversteering with throttle) and would wind up slowing down. So you can deactivate clutch plates, remove any extra shims, or you could stiffen the negative springs. If the differential is locking up at 150rwtq, you would be losing torque to the inside wheel when you started to apply power coming out of the turn. So you can then reactive clutch plates, add in shims, or soften the negative springs.


Note that "lock up" isn't really an accurate depiction. In reality, the clutch plates are going to be slipping under low torque situations so it isn't acting like an open diff, nor is it acting like a completely locked differential. It'll be somewhere in between. You just want to make it slip under the conditions where you do want the outside wheel to turn faster, and locked when you want both wheels turning at the same speed.

The problem is going to be finding out just where that point is. I imagine it would involve a lot of trial & error, so if you're paying someone else to essentially rebuild the differential as they swap plates/shims/springs each time you make an adjustment, it'll get fairly costly. And if you made a bunch of changes to the car that affected the handling (say you installed massive slicks) -- ideally you'd want to readjust the diff to compensate.

That's one of the reasons torsens are so popular. They don't use clutch plates, they use a combination of gears to essentially send torque to whatever wheel has the most traction (as long as the other wheel has some -- they don't work at all when one wheel is completely unweighted). Many claim that they're better than a properly setup clutch-type diff (but others vehemently disagree). For us, it really doesn't matter since the stock MK3 1JZ torsens are pretty weak and no one else makes one that fits.
 
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ma71supraturbo

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OK, you're right the RS's springs are what determines the initial preload. The MZ uses a cone spring (they call it a cone plate in that picture).

Basically with the MZ, as the cam wedges the two halves apart the Cone spring gets compressed even more. With the RS, as the cam wedges the two halves apart the tension on the coil springs lessens -- allowing for the smoother engagement.

So for the RS, a stiffer spring translates into more preload -- opposite of the OS Giken.
 

HKS_TRD

Active Member
Jul 21, 2007
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I run an MZ 1.5 way on mine.

On initial install it was VERY harsh and clunked alot, even when just chaning lanes in traffic. Doing turns like when parking it would load up so much the rear wheel would move in the wheelarch. It destroyed the oil very quickly initially (80km first time) but after the first few oil changes which were very close together has now settled down to the point where its OK. I am not as conscious of it being there other than the odd reminder of its presence here and there (its been a while but I am sure this is how it got t very quickly)

I found the diff made the car alot more predictable when the motor was on full noise and turnin the tyres at 100kph.

I guess basically if you get the MZ it is insane at first but once broken in it is entirely liveable. I have no plans to change mine
 

hockysa

New Member
HKS_TRD;1416485 said:
I run an MZ 1.5 way on mine.

On initial install it was VERY harsh and clunked alot, even when just chaning lanes in traffic. Doing turns like when parking it would load up so much the rear wheel would move in the wheelarch. It destroyed the oil very quickly initially (80km first time) but after the first few oil changes which were very close together has now settled down to the point where its OK. I am not as conscious of it being there other than the odd reminder of its presence here and there (its been a while but I am sure this is how it got t very quickly)

I found the diff made the car alot more predictable when the motor was on full noise and turnin the tyres at 100kph.

I guess basically if you get the MZ it is insane at first but once broken in it is entirely liveable. I have no plans to change mine

ahh yeah, I won't mind the clunky ness anyways.

what oil you using?
 

Zach

ECUMaster USA
Apr 6, 2005
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hockysa;1416501 said:
ahh yeah, I won't mind the clunky ness anyways.

what oil you using?

You'd probably have better results with the RS. I'm sure the MZ is aimed for cars running full slicks on the track. I can't imagine that the RS wouldn't be suitable for your needs.
 

streetracer_258

Powertrain Engineer
Sep 1, 2009
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ma71supraturbo is the standard MK3 LSD a 1.5 way because when i rebuilt mine recently i noticed there were no ramps on cradle where the spider gears sit. Most clutch type lsd's have ramps so as the cradle is turned as its attached to the ring gear the spider gear lug rids up the ramp and applies a force to the clutch plates which increase the friction and creates a stronger locking force. As in the picture below.
Variloc_diag_3045.gif


Does the LSD in the MK3 create this thrust in a different way. Apart from the preload created by the spring. Just askin as am curious. I have only worked on Hewlend LSD's.
 

Cz.

CAR > FAMILY
Mar 31, 2005
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Most cusco lsds are setup as 1.5 way from the factory, however they are made with both ramp cuts so you can take it apart and make it a 2-way.
 

ma71supraturbo

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The stocker is a 1.5-way. I haven't taken one apart in 5 years, but if I remember correctly the ramp profiles were more on the cam more than the housing. I've got a spare lsd sitting in the parts car though and I'll see if I can get some time this week to take it apart and snap some pics