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The diff slid right back into place and assembly is the opposite of disassembly. We used Motul Gear 300 in 75w90 with two bottle of the limited slip additive that came with the diff.
How well does this diff work? According to the chart we stole from Auburn's web site, pretty darned good. The diff seems to have the capability to bias a lot of torque, as much as 425 lb/ft of it, which is pretty close to full lock. We had our doubts because a cone shaped side gear seems to have much less friction area than two multi plate clutches and a sprung plate would seem to have less preloading than the wedging action of the spider gear cross shafts.
Here is an exploded view of the differentials insides. You can see how the side gear acts like a cone clutch against the differential case and only the 4 small springs provide the wedging force. It doesn't seem like it would transfer 425 lb ft! So drum roll- will the diff work?So do we think that the Auburn HD limited slip does the job? Boy does it ever. We will even go as far as to say that the diff is the second best thing we have added to the Truck besides the TRD Supercharger!
Overall grip when driving around town is so greatly improved that you can now actually put down and use all of that wondrous supercharged power. The electronic nannies come on way less frequently, usually only when you are really getting silly. Gone are the ridiculous rolling burnouts, replaced only with seamless acceleration. The rolling burnout speed has been dropped to around 10 mph instead of 50. There is much more traction and the truck actually feels slower because it's hooked up and stable.
Before if you punched it off the line with traction control off, the truck would get away mostly spinning one wheel as long as the gas was held down. Now the truck at the most will burn out with both wheels for 50 feet while accelerating hard away from the line. The truck leaves two solid strips of rubber.
90 percent of the wheel hop is now gone. If the road is rough, it might get a little wheelhop going but only a couple of hops, not dribbling basket balls like before. With a little shock adjustment, we might be able to get rid of all the wheelhop.
Accelerating while cornering in vastly improved with the Truck not totally spinning the inside wheel like before. No more autobog. When the traction control comes on, it is now much less intrusive. Traction while driving in dirt is probably doubled with the truck now so much easier to drive.
What is also cool is that it is now possible to drift the truck although drifting a tall 4X4 is a bit scary. With the traction control and the stability control, you can't get crossed up enough to flip though. Now the electronic aids actually seem to help since the limits are much higher before they kick in. We think that the limited slip will also greatly help with a truck with the stock engine as it is pretty easy to spin the tires with the stock power as well.
The cone type limited slip seems to lock really well, allaying our fears that it would hardly do anything. It is also extremely smooth and quiet in operation, unlike your typical clunky clutch type LSD. This is in fact the smoothest and quietest LSD we have yet to evaluate by far. With the electronic nannys not kicking in nearly as much, the brakes should last a lot longer as well.
After evaluating the Auburn HD differential, we would not hesitate and in fact be eager to try one of their diffs in a car. We would also highly recommend this differential to any Tundra owner who drives his truck hard enough for the traction control to come on frequently or off road. Pulling a boat up a slippery launch ramp should be tons easier as well.
We love this mod, tons of positive gains and no drawbacks that we could determine. We should have done this diff first! Toyota you should make this thing stock!
1 comment
Where can I get the Auburn gear for the tundra and who does installs near 73858.