WaveTrac Differential

So I did not want to clog up a thread by someone else asking an entirely different question by focusing on the WaveTrac differential he mentioned he would be using on his car.

I did a little research on it. Needing a differential myself in the future (the only thing not addressed in the drivetrain yet as part of the 521/C6 build), I have been looking at several options. Tru-Trac gets some good press, some of the locker variants also (such as PowerTrax) look pretty good.

They all seem to have their pluses and minuses. The PowerTrax, while very nice, seems apt to cause problems in poor traction conditions like a turn in wet or snowy weather.

While this is a Chevrolet and is a dragstrip vehicle, the article has some interesting information in it:

http://www.dragzine.com/project-cars/project-maxstreet/maxstreet-nova-gets-moser-9-inch-and-wavetrac-differential/

So I did a little research on the WaveTrac. It actually looks like it will behave very well in more "pedestrian" situations like daily driving in wet weather or a drive over a snowy mountain pass (for those of you in the East, we have mountains in the West that get really high and have snow in them).

They aren't cheap. Where as most differential carriers will cost you around $500 or so, these are $900-$1000 (I checked Summit pricing).

worm gears.. http://www.wavetrac.net/index.htm

My car will never see a track. It is 98% daily driver, and I'm not sure what the other 2% is, but I am sure it is something important as well. 

This seems to be an updated version of it where you don't lose drive in zero conditions due to the wave hubs inside

Comparing this to the TrueTrac and Quaife there isn't a huge amount of difference price wise but these have a lifetime warranty and as an engineer I like the theory behind them

To an extent, if you look on their page they explain it. Its a case of preloaded wave shaped ramp hubs giving the drive at all times as they produce enough pressure to keep the spiders engaged

The fact it comes as standard with a 1350 yoke and a few other nice touches plus in a 4.86:1 ratio was enough for me. no other diff from Summit comes that high or low

It uses worm gears inside to send even power or split it when needed so in that sense its like the Torsen and it keeps drive even under zero load conditions like a locker but this is done without a clutch pack so theres nothing to wear out

I've got to service my 98 Mountaineer with the Torsen diff, I installed 104k miles ago. It's been a great unit for snow and all around street use. The higher power levels are not recommended for them though, drag racing especially.

How much power is the limit for the other types, for basic street use, not actual drag racing?

The gear type diffs are very heavy, get a hold of one if you get a chance. It's a huge chunk of steel, no air gaps really.

Nuggets wrote: Apparently the limit on this one is as much as you can throw at it!

It's a 9", that is worth a lot versus the 8.8's I read so much more about.