can you weld up a differential for the 420a tranny?

[southrneclipser]

i've got a 95 rs. The 5 speed tranny in it is all stock and it gets wheel hop really bad. I have no money to buy an lsd but i do have a welder. Can i weld it up or no? What would some pros and cons of a welded diff. Would it advance tire, suspension, or steering wear? How would it do in corners? Keep in mind that this is a DD. Thanks all

 

[JWoodley]

I have a spare differential from a 98 GS if you want to play around with it. I was using it to fabricate LSD/spring inserts waaaaay back in the day.

 

[Achelea]

I'll reply before the rage storm. ((This is an observation!))

1.) Cheap Fast Reliable. Pick two, you can't really have all three these days. We don't care about the reason behind it.

2.) Wheel hop is controllable through throttle control. Pushing the pedal to the floor and letting the clutch snap back will send the torque to whichever tire has the least resistance, and the tire will spin. And since the tire is trying to overcome the entire car's inertia, you build up resistance. The tire goes in what ever direction provides the lowest resistance. Which if you got stock suspension, it goes up. That causes the tire to freewheel and unload the built up power. Then it's put back down to the surface. Wash, rinse repeat.

Now, if you learn how to control the throttle and clutch, and wait to put the throttle down, you'll get rid of the wheel hop.

3.) Can you afford to mess this up? If for some reason you don't do it right, either because of earthquake, aliens, or random duck attack, you end up breaking it, do you have a spare? Extra axles, mounts, differential?

4.) Welded diffs are for racing and offroading, where you want the power sent to both wheels. Unless you never need to turn more than a degree or two, a few days of parking lots will cause Something to give, either your diff shatters, your front axles joints will fall apart. Even if they survive, every time you turn, the outer tire will drag, or the inner tire will skip, and chirp a lot. Expect replacing tires, bushings, and such. Since he's offering a spare, you can try it, but there is a chance that your welds are great and they hold. A chain is only as strong as it's weakest link. If you have a titanium chain and one link is made of paper, can you guess what will break if you put a load on it?

Honestly, if you can't afford a diff, you might look practicing instead. Ask people who race, they don't push the pedal to the floor. Their legs are moving back and forth a lot while they are compensating for how the car acts. The driver is there to control the car, not just along for the ride. Even with the best suspension and diff, if you can't control it, it will do it anyways.

"The best way to improve times is to Tighten The Nut Behind The Wheel."

If you Really want to go really fast, I'd suggest looking into a Turbo FWD, or AWD. It can be done with NA, but it was NOT cheap. It took a shop a LOT of time to get a NA up to a bit over 200hp.

But, your choice.

TL;DR Practicing pedal control is cheaper and takes less time than pulling a transmission apart, and far less permanent. That and you can transfer that over to the next car.

Also, I found this on another DSM site. Due to conflict, I won't list it, but I can PM you the url if you like. But here is the post.

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posted by DamnedDSM

I recently welded the stock differential in my 2g GST. I have never really been able to find information on this subject but all of the "wise" people say "dont do it, trust me"
Since I haven't been able to find any information on it, I decided to do; 'The Top 5 reasons NOT to weld your differential'
5.) A welded differential makes the diver side and passenger side tire fight the asphault when turning, resulting is premature tire wear.
4.) Turning also puts a lot of stress on the CV joints and axles. I have already had to replace both axles. One of them only had 10,000mi on it, the other half shafts mileage was unknown. The new axles (Autozone) are already clicking under hard, slow turns and all right hand turns over 15MPH.
3.) Your turning radius gets WAY worse. You can forget about making those u-turns that you were already having problems making. It jerks and shakes during u-turns anyhow, it makes for a pretty unpleasant ride.
2.) I am pretty sure that the added tension from the welded diff daily driving has also caused my lower ball joints to go out but then again, they could be the factory ones from 1995?
1.) The power steering rack hasn't handled the abuse very well. I recently started hearing a clunking noise when I would go over bumps. As the clunking got louder, I started to notice a little wheel hop while driving on wet roads. The power steering rack has got almost 1/2" in it and I can move my tire from side to side
If you have the money, and you plan to turn your steering wheel while on the street... save up and buy a quaife or kazz. If your budget is as low as mine, and you need your car to get to your job OR if you plan on towing your car to the track... the do it.

Best ET: 12.63@108mph with a 1.85 60' on 19-20psi with a td05h
but 60' of that night was a 1.78 but I broke 2 teeth off of my stock differential (and I didn't have a replacement, hence my welded diff, and this thread

Launch: 5750rpm [Hard] (DSMLink)
Tires: MT Drag ETs (12-13psi)

If I didn't drive the GST everyday, I might not mind it as much but it has gotten really old, and it will greatly reduce my resale if I don't replace it before someone test drives it.

Other than those things, the traction is awesome.

 

[bullettdsm]

Do not weld the diff. You will not like it.

Upgrade your motor mounts and put in a upper strut bar. I can do holeshots all day long with my stocker 99 OZ (I did about 25 at the track on day, ). The only thing I added to the mix was a solid front roll stop motor mount and a strut bar (oh, and I put diff tab savers in the tranny). Its more about engine/flex movement than the diff. You should pegleg before you wheel hop if your are tight up front.

Now, we all know that doing one wheel burnouts is not a god idea for the diff though. It will explode in time.

MB

 

[southrneclipser]

thank you all for the detailed responses. I've decided against welding it up . I'll be sure to upgrade my suspension. I've got lowering springs but now my struts are so worn out that the car will litterally launch you out of the seat over dips in the road . It doesn't help that my seat belt will no longer retract.

By the way please don't think im some dumb newb that wants to make his N/A into a race car or anything. I was just wondering the pros and cons and how compatible a locked diff is with daily driving, and if it would be a profitable purchase in the future. Again thanks all for the quick responses.

 

[Achelea]

Practice! Practice! Practice!

 

[phill]

my prothane solid mounts fixed my wheel hop. 80 bucks for all 4 mounts and its not hard to put them in

 

[NeMiZiS]

"The best way to improve times is to Tighten The Nut Behind The Wheel."

I don't get it?

 

[Locke]

Nemizis: The "Nut" is you, the driver. The "wheel" is the steering wheel.

 

[Griffeclipsed98]

my prothane solid mounts fixed my wheel hop. 80 bucks for all 4 mounts and its not hard to put them in

totaly agree go with the compleate prothane mount kit it will do the trick also installing some new shocks or even better go for a really good coil over set up get ride of 95 % of the wheel hop