Forums Forums Enthusiast Forums A - Z Autowirral LSD and traction control

Can anyone explain to me in simple terms the difference between LSD and traction control, which is the best to have and the different feelings driving with either?

LSD is mechanical and traction control is electronic.

An LSD is inside your diff. On a regular diff or open diff, power goes to the wheel with the least grip and often your inside wheel will spin. An LSD sends the power to the wheel with the most grip hence reducing wheelspin.

Traction control is in your ECU using sensors it can tell that a wheel is beginning to spin and will momanterily back off your throttle until the wheelspin is eliminated.

Theres pro's and cons to both. For pure driving performance its LSD all the way. However an LSD can cause severe torque steer in a Front wheel drive car, aswell as make a Rear wheel drive car twitchy and unpredictable at low speeds. The main con with Traction control is that it saps power, but it can often be switched off.

Hope that explains it

Basically when you turn a corner wheels on the outside of the corner need to go faster than the wheels on the inside as they have further to go. An open differential allows this to an unlimited amount hence why cars without LSDs just spin an inside wheel and the outside wheel doesnt even break traction.

An LSD - Limited Slip Differential does what it says on the tin - it limits how much speed differential there can be between the wheels so when the inside wheel spins it will get to a point where the diffs limit kicks in and will then spin the outside wheel too. Unfortunatly it doesnt reduce wheel spin, it just evens the power distribution between the driven wheels.

Traction control is like ABS in reverse. It uses tha ABS sensors to measure wheel speeds if the driven wheel speeds exceed the non driven wheel speed (car breaks traction) then the ECU cuts the power and on some cars applies the breaks to regain traction.

These are very basic explanations as there are various types of differential - LSD and NON LSD, and tied in with traction control is stability control and 4x4 traction control which is more complicated again...

nothing to do with drugs or lucy then?

I did wonder, but as it was in Cars Chit Chat, guessed it was to do with cars....

had the post been here though...

sello-tape on the button dont work cos stability crap cuts in on every turn of the key. humbug (too lazy to say bah) doh