OT on (very) limited slip differentials

["John Hertzman" <johnhertzman@domain.elided>]

In AD8-0086 Dana Loomis writes "The other commonplace approach is to weld up
the differential so it's permanently locked.  This is a crude  solution well
known to American circle trackers.  It's cheap and effective, but wouldn't be
practical for a street-driven car.  On a race car, a locked rear requires
adjustments in driving style, because the car tends to push at corner entry,
but you can--in wheelspin-limited corners--get on the power earlier."

 I would generally agree, today, but when I was younger and perhaps less
mature I found it quite enjoyable on a street-driven car. My second home-brew
was a bare-bones (like no top or sidecurtains) and seriously lowered (like a
drop-axle and suicide front end, with corresponding 'Z' at the back) A-V8 with
all the usual Edelbrock/Iskenderian tweaks; several of my friends ran twice a
week on quarter-mile dirt tracks, and I did my strictly-street machine
dirt-track style with parallel steering (no ackerman geometry) and a locked
rear end. Almost all roads then were what we would now call meandering rural
two-lanes, with just a few three-lanes, and there was less traffic, and it
made an interesting driver. As Dana says, it requires adjustment of driving
style; the fix for 'pushing' was, of course, to hang the tail out a bit. The
tires did chirp a bit in town, and it got better fuel economy in Michigan than
in Massachusetts, but it didn't seem as impractical as Dana suggests. I
wouldn't do it now, on an Alfa - -

 Baloonfoot John

Postscript: I am far from the only Alfa codger with rodding roots: Don Black
used to do wheelies with his Ford-engined Austin A-40 before he too grew up.
Not that I ever was, or ever will be, in his league -

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