Aftermarket LSD - which oil?


type-r-dunk

type-r-dunk

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Hi
I have searched the forum but couldn't find the answer.
I have two questions really
1. i have a plate ATS lsd and was wondering which G-oil to use, oem Honda gear oil?
2. Do plate LSD's need the oil changing more often?

Many thanks Duncan
 
honda gear oil is to thin, the lsd will be very noisy if u use it. I use kaaz gear oil with my cusco lsd but after seeing how thick it was (like maple syrup) which makes it hard to go into gear when cold i now mix it 50/50 with honda gear oil and find it much better, diff is silent in operation and gears go in easy.

Yes you have to change the gear oil more often as the clutch plates wear down faster than standard gearbox components, i change mine every 10-15k
 
wheres teh best place to buy kaaz gear oil as i have a mugen diff in my box and will be changing the oil very soon...
 
Honda MTF, i dont understand these people that use mega expensive gear oil just because the companies tell them to.

My friend has a Cusco Diff in his gearbox, used to be Noisy as **** with Motul MTF fluid which was expensive, he now just uses OEM stuff and its silent and much prefers it. Obviously.

Kaaz stuff is a Joke. they sell it in 2litre containers, yet you need 2.2litres to fill the box. £33 per 2 litre container IIRC, this was last year, it may have gone up or down by now.
 
Not entirely true Dunsy.......

Gear oils designed for use with plated diffs have friction modifiers which help the diff to work as it should, although be careful which diff oil you use as some are designed as PURELY diff oils for say RWD, put that in a synchromesh box and it won't do it any good

Kaaz oil is good yes but very £££, it is 80w90 so very thick...........

I use synchro 80 fluid by 76 performance on reccomendation by Mardis Gras racing who use this fluid in their race hondas. It's 70w80 so a bit lighter than the kaaaazzzzzz and also available from them in 1L bottles. it is designed SPECIFICALLY for synchromesh transmissions running plated diffs, gearchanges feel super slick with it, no problmes when cold and the diff works excelent

As dunsy said there are many people that have used MTF3 to what they assume is great affect, i.e the diff is quiet so they think awww great, but as to weather the diff is working to it's full potential and the plates are not wearing prematurely is another matter................

:)
 
i have a spoon plate lsd, with honda mtf it's awful, noisy and you can just feel it wearing it out every time you turn......now with royal purple oil in the LSD is perfect but the gear oil needs to warm up before the synchro's work properly.

i have seen amsoil highly recommended, and also gm syncomesh with an added friction modifier.

As far as i'm aware, there is no oil on the market which will work perfectly with a plate lsd AND honda syncros......anything you use will be a compromise.

standard honda MTF is NOT the best option with a plate LSD......oem lsd then i'd use MTF every time.....i'm not one for paying over the odds for products that wont benefit me.

Deffinately need to change the oil more, but i have heard that most of the contamination from the plates will settle over time or can be removed with a filter or centrifuge so you can store your old gear oil, and by the time you next need to change it again most of the dirt will have settled to the bottom, and the oil will be fairly clean again......might sound a bit stingy, but like i say i wont 'waste' money and at over £20 per litre i deffinately want as much use as i can get out of it.

next time i think i'll try amsoil

EDIT after re-reading the post above mine i'm actually going to try what stevenEK9 is using next time instead :)
 
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oem oil is definately not quiet, it makes the diff grate very badly and doesn't let the plates slide smoothly, they slip then bite sharply making the car judder every time you turn, not a good driving experience. I've found that the kaaz oil although very thick is fine when it warms up, it's only when it's stone cold that it makes it harder to go into gear.

Mtf oil will reduce the life of the diff
 
stevenEK9 said:
I use synchro 80 fluid by 76 performance on reccomendation by Mardis Gras racing who use this fluid in their race hondas. It's 70w80 so a bit lighter than the kaaaazzzzzz and also available from them in 1L bottles. it is designed SPECIFICALLY for synchromesh transmissions running plated diffs, gearchanges feel super slick with it, no problmes when cold and the diff works excelent


:)
Click to expand...

where can you get this oil
 
Don't use gear oil, because it wasn't designed for a Honda transmission. Most of the popular "lsd" gear oils on the market are just not suitable, and will making shifting worse due to too much friction modifier.

Honda MTF is fine to use on a daily driver, but not really suitable for a race car due to the high temperatures.

Our recommendation is Torco MTF or RTF, then add some Ford Friction Modifier in small quantities until you find the perfect compromise between noise and shifting performance. Unfortunately, no one can determine that but yourself. It is trial and error.

You DON'T need "special fluid", contrary to what any performance shop may tell you. Transmission Fluid (Torco, Amsoil etc) + Ford Friction Modifier :)
 
It seems the ATS metal and carbon diff's use two very different oil's. the metal is ?w90 and the carbon 75or80w140 full synth.

How can i tell what i have got? mine feels very subtle, only occasionally clunks a tiny bit. Clunks a little more when very hot after being the track but mot much.

Which TARCO oil do you use, the 75w90 (mineral) or 80w90 (synth)?

Thanks Guys, Duncan
 
do not use torco oil, i had kazz in mine before it was never hard to shift when cold and the diff was literally silent....now i have torco and its the noisiest most violent diff ever i actually cant drive the car its so bad..im goin changin back to kaaz
 
i find the mix of mtf and kaaz oil to be perfect, the diff is as quiet as it was with pure kaaz oil yet as easy as standard to go into gear, only gets a little bit harder when it's freezing cold. Only found this out by accident as i lost a litre of kaaz oil while putting it in the car, forgot to lower the front of the car before i started and the angle caused a litre to flow straight out the fill hole. Didn't notice till the next day as i did it at night and found a pool of oil under the car.
 
Torco is the best fluid you can use. The reason why you hear the noise and "feel" the diff working is because it does not contain friction modifier.

You need to ADD the Ford Friction modifier yourself, in small quantities at a time until you find the perfect compromise between noise and performance.

DO NOT use Gear Oil in a Honda Transmission.
 
i have friction modifier added

i used 2 litres torco and 200ml honda mtf and a small bottle of friction modifier and imo its the worst thing ever

il try kaaz and see whats better
 
This is the exact setup we use on all of our race cars (circuit and rally) and it works much better than any generic "lsd oil" on the market: Torco RTF + Ford Friction Modifier

Noise is because you haven't added enough or the correct type of modifier. Locking hard is because the diff is doing its job. If you don't want it to be as hard, change the lock % in the diff, or add more/correct modifier.

The Kaaz fluid has far too much modifier in it, that it really affects the performance of your synchros (synchros require friction, the modifier decreases friction)
 
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i am not a gearbox expert. I have dealt with plate LSD's 3 times in my life, i'll list my 3 experiences below.

Fitted an SR20DET to a fwd nissan sunny, bought a box out of an ex rally almera with cusco plate diff. built car up, filled gearbox with whatever was recommended for the standard box. I had never been in a car with a clutch diff but had read they were noisy. when i went for a drive i couldn't believe how noisy it was, and the way the steering would tigten up as i was turning a corner, make a cracking noise, go loose and then start tightening up again....felt like it was going to snap a drive shaft... deffinately not right. i dont know why i did, but i tried a synthetic oil from the local motor factors and the difference was immense, no more loud clunking, no more feeling like i was going to snap a shaft....could still feel the steering pulling straight when applying throttle on a corner but was smooth and only needed a constant force to keep to my intended line on a corner. a light chatter noise on some slow slight turns but more in line with the level of noise i expected before i fitted it IMO the lsd was now working as it should.

Experience 2. went to look at a starlet glanza turbo for my girlfriend, saw a tidy one with lots of nice mods so took it for a drive. it immediately became aparent that this car had a clutch lsd fitted (fresh import from japan) i had the same feeling of the steering pulling straight (but in a nice smooth manner) when i aplied power on a corner........my gf loved the car so we bought it. as we were pulling away the diff made a bit of a clunk, my girlfriend was horrified that her new car was making such horrible noises but i said it was fine it only does it now and again. by the time we got home (about 100 miles away) it was clunking badly and with each clunk you would feel the plates slip and the steering go light.....it was doing it on every corner now and my girlfriend was nearly crying. The next morning i got some royal purple box oil for it, changed the oil, took the car for a drive and within 5 miles it was perfect. girlfriend over the moon, lsd still working great now 2.5years later (changed the royal purple once in this time) I have a feeling the garage that imported it ghanged the box oil as part of a 'service' when it came into the country and just used cheap oil.

Experience 3, similar to experience 1, this time i bought a recon ep3-r box with new spoon lsd but was already filled with MTF. knowing how Honda syncro's like the right oil, i decided to try it with the mtf....was same as my previous bad experiences and i honestly didn't think i would manage to bed in the LSD doing figure 8's without snapping a shaft or popping a cv joint. after a lot of research, i thought i'd get the royal purple (because i can get it same day off the shelf) just to bed the diff in while i do some more research on something that works with the syncro's, aswell as the LSD, and get something ordered off the internet.......thats the stage i'm at now.

I imagine on a 'race' car the syncro's wear out pretty quick and you need to preserve them as best you can( i imagine getting a bad grinding box will affect your lap times) where the lsd will be expected to be rebuilt after so many races anyway and wont suddenly wear out during a race.....on a road car the lifespan of the lsd is more important though, for me anyway, i don't enjoy pulling gearboxes out any more often than i need to.

I'm deffinately going to try an mtf with friction modifier on my next oil change, but if you are using your car on the road and need something in your box quick then i would deffinately prefer a synthetic 'gear oil' that lets my lsd work correctly and nurse my syncro's until it's upto running temperature (i mean you shouldn't be ragging your car when cold anyway. The box oil heats up and thins out before the temp gauge starts moving) than use any kind of normal mtf if you don't have the friction modifier.

will a mtf + modifier give the same long life of your LSD (road use) as a synthetic gear oil? i hope so.

also,i don't really think mixing mtf and gear oil is a good idea......say for example a synthetic gear oil is 5% friction modifier and 95% gear oil, and 5% is the ideal amount of friction modifier for your lsd (just a figure i have plucked from nowhere)..... Then if you do a 50:50 mix then all your'e doing is making up an oil which contains 50% mtf, 47.5% gear oil and 2.5% friction modifier when the ideal for your tranny is 95%mtf, 5% friction modifier.........the 47.5% gear oil in your mixture would be 'diluting' the effects of the mtf and friction modifier.

this is all assuming mtf + modifier works, i've read it does but never tried it personally+
 
Ok I am thinking now I wil just try my hardest to get hold of some ATS oil, not cheap and they say to change every 3k miles if driven really hard!
Dunx
 
road use i rekon you can do 6k between changes no probs.....and like i said before, i heard if you leave the old oil to settle in a container somewhere, all the particles, which are mainly bits of friction of friction plate, are heavier than the oil, and will sink to the bottom over time, making the oil clean, and able to be used again.......the only reason its recommended to change it so often is because it gets so contaminated with the plates wearing.
 
there is a carbonetic UK rep on itr-dc2 he seems most helpfull, i`ll pop over tehre and find his details for ya
 
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