wittyworks

iTrader: (6)

I installed a torsen diff a week ago with energy suspension diff mounts, and since then I noticed a single "clinking" noise whenever I am shifting in low gears or engaging/disengaging the clutch around town. I have only been driving it around town trying to diagnose and fix this clinking noise.

My first thought was that some of the diff mount bolts had come loose when I let the car off jack stands and needed to be re-torqued. I checked all of the mounting bolts, axle bolts, and ppf bolts and they are all torqued to spec.

Then I noticed that the torsen had quite a bit of rotational slop in it when I had the parking brake on, and I compared it to the open diff I just took out. Turns out that the torsen has about 5/16" rotational slop at the input shaft, and the open diff i took out has about 1/8" rotational slop. I took videos of both to show how significant the difference is.

Open diff slop:


Torsen diff slop:


Have you guys ever seen this much slop in your diff? Does it make sense that this is causing the clinking noise when its letting off and picking off this much slack in the driveline? Is this something that I can fix if I take apart the diff?

Or should I try to get my money back from the person who I bought the diff from.

Thanks guys,
Evan

Ciotti

I've been trying to track down where I'm getting driveline slop from as well just to tighten up the bounce/shock from coming back on the throttle in hard corners during autocross runs so I'm really interested to see what answers you get.

I believe the video of the diff in the car with the e-brake on is also adding the slop in your cv-joints to that measurement you're getting right?

wittyworks

iTrader: (6)

Yes ciotti that is correct. The torsen video has the ebrake on, but there is some slight movement in the cv joints on the axles which might explain why there is so much more slop at the input shaft. I should have measured this slop before i put the torsen on, because I have no interest in taking it off again unless I need to.

Sokool

iTrader: (1)

I have my car on my lift right now with no drive train other then the diff and axles. I have the same excessive slop. Before I pulled it apart I too noticed the same "knock" you are referring to. I planned to pop the nose off and do a few checks and possibly reshim it.

chpmnsws6

iTrader: (12)

That looks to be on the far end of "normal" still. You have to bind the torsen gears and ring/pinion where the open you are just binding the ring/pinion.

wittyworks

iTrader: (6)

I'm going to install the mazdacomp motor mounts this week and see if they help remove some of the driveline slop. Yes they are on the complete opposite side of the driveline, but it's all connected. My stock motor mounts are like 137k miles old and have been through boosted torture.

I took it out for another drive after i double checked all the mounting bolt/axle/ppf bolt torques. I think I was just being overly worrisome about it before. The noise is still there but it's not very frequent and I'm just going to romp on car under stock power and hope it doesn't break.

Ciotti

When I'm double checking mine this week I'll see if I can shoot a video of how much slop I have just as a data point for ya.

Laur3ns

Better yet post a video of the noise during driving.