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| The clutch plates and side gear for one axle is loaded into the diff case. |
When the plates want to slip, the initial clamping load on the clutches cause a resistance which is transferred to the spider gears and their cross shaft. The cross shafts wedge into slots in the clutch plate carriers increasing the clamping load on the clutch plates and increasing the locking force. The shapes of the cams on the cross shafts and the slots in the clutch plate carriers have a lot to do with the locking characteristics of the diff.
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| Here they are in place. |
The Nismo GT diff is adjustable so it can be a one way or a 1.5 way locker. A one way locks on drive and unlocks on coast. This provides easy turn in off throttle and less tendency to start to drift when coasting into a turn. A 1.5 way means full locking on drive and half locking on coast so the car will rotate more strongly on corner entry. A two way means full lock on both drive and coast. Many drifters prefer this but it is not as useful of a setting. We set Sera’s diff up as a 1.5 way.
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| Then one gear housing half is installed. |
The Nismo diff also has many other features like 4 spider gears (the stock diff only has two) and 10 clutches for long life. If we are going to be road racing we would probably set the diff up on the soft setting for preload, on 1.5 way and flip two sets of clutches on each axle to soften the lock to help corner exit traction. Since Sera is going to so some drifting we left the clutch plates alone.
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| Then the pinion shaft assembly taking care to put the cams in the diamond shaped windows for 1.5 way operation. |
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| Then the other side gear and gear housing is positioned on top. |
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| The clutch plates are dropped in. Now you can probably imagine how the wedging action of the pinion shafts puts more clamp on the clutch plates and how the preloader adds initial torque. |
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| Now the diff assembly is waiting for the end cap to be bolted in place. |
