My homemade 4.11 LSD is finally done!

[ciper]

Not installed yet but I finally got my LSD all together! I almost want to clean it up and hang it on the wall it looks so cool

To make the swap easy and not take my car out of commision I went to the junkyard and bought an open 4.11 differential for 70$

During the dissasembly I broke a "Spring Wire Circlip" that is used to hold the axle stub in place. I looked all over hell to find a replacement. Im glad I watched Macgyver, I went to home depot and purchased a package of key rings. I cut one in half and had a perfect replacement!

Another snag was how dang tight the Ring gear to differential bolts are. 8 if I remember right. I did the job in my garage with normal tools. I finally got them loose (loctite on all of them) by using two breaker bars at once (tightening one bolt and loosening another until all of them could be loosened by standing on the differential). They must have took 250 ft lbs to loosen.

Then I thought I was stuck. I was going to swap the 4.11 pinion into the 4.44's housing. The pinion nut was 28mm and it was so damn tight, plus the thing spun no matter what I did. I ended up braeking some tools trying to get the thing off.

When I get into this type of situation I always walk away for a while to refresh my mind. It worked well, I thought "hey, why do I have to swap them? They are both the same differential on the outside, Ill just keep the 4.11 case with the 4.11 ring and replace all the other parts from the 4.44 lsd (stubs, caps, etc..)

Then for some weird reason I couldnt get the ring/lsd combo inside the housing!!!! One small metal lump prevented insertion. At this point I was so close to finishing that I just pulled out the dremel and removed the lump.

Put it back together using the same amount of spacers (for lash adjustment) and visually checked the spacing. Looked good so I left it as is.

I realized that removing the studs on the differential cover makes installation SUPER easy, just countertighten two nuts and twist them right out. It also makes removal easy.

The LSD unit itself is super tight. I have to use all my force and it barely turns. Cant wait to use this along with my full lock center diff mod, should make the car unstoppable in the dirt!

[morgie]

If you wanted a full-lock center-diff, you should have asked me, the one i replaced is in that condition _Without any modifs_ !



Nice work, do you have any pics ? hehe

[scuzzy]

The LSD unit itself is super tight. I have to use all my force and it barely turns.

this should be a point of concern IMO, the diff should turn freely - not exactly freewheel but it shouldn't require excessive force to make the internals rotate.

[Arctic Assassian]

I searched, but no info about this center diff mod? Have you not shared this wonder?

[vrg3]

I'd imagine he was planning on just turning off Duty Solenoid C with a little clever circuitry; his cars tend to be automatics.

[tahiti350]

The LSD unit itself is super tight. I have to use all my force and it barely turns.

this should be a point of concern IMO, the diff should turn freely - not exactly freewheel but it shouldn't require excessive force to make the internals rotate.

I read that as turning the axleshafts opposite, hopefully it's not the whole diff being hard to turn. If it is it's not going to last very long, IMO...

[Subtle]

Ciper--interesting approach

My pm sending out feature doesn't seem to be sending out to you.

When you have a moment send me a note so that you can continue the project.

[BAC5.2]

Ciper hasn't been around for a while. This thread is 5 years old...

[asc_up]

He was around for awhile, in November or December IIRC.

[BAC5.2]

And June of 2003 when this thread was started...

[ciper]

I'm sorta back. The differential has been great since originally posting this. I don't drive the car often these days.

When I said the differential was hard to turn I meant the two axel stubs. The input shaft spins freely and has minimal backlash.

Recently I performed a similar conversion with a WRX 3.54:1 diff to a 4.11:1 diff and its also woring great.