Description

The Ashcroft Torque Biasing Limited Slip Differential

The key features are: –

    Fully automatic, needs no driver input
    Totally transparent on road, i.e, no unwanted adverse effects
    Only comes into play when one wheel looses traction, i.e, a difference in wheel speed
    Enhances the traction control as it multiplies the bias load created by the braking effect of the traction control
    Needs no adjustment as the gears compensate for any wear that takes place
    Only with 24 spline side gears

The Ashcroft Torque Biasing centre works best with a good quality EP80/90 Mineral based oil, we do not recommend synthetic oils, friction additives / modifiers and not required.

The Ashcroft Torque Biasing centre is a ‘Helical Gear’ type LSD with six gear pockets.

There are a number of other LSD available including the ‘plate type’ and the Torsen T1, we believe the Ashcroft Torque Biasing centre is superior to the Plate type LSD principally because of the high preload necessary to make the plate type effective, this high pre load leads to ‘harshness and vibration effects’ and causes high premature wear. The Torsen T1 was the forerunner Automatic Torque Biasing centre and relied on a different principle to generate cross torque, effectively using coupled worm and wheel gears, being driven backwards, to create the necessary friction loads. These often failed due to this high loading destroying the worm gears.

The helical gear type Ashcroft Torque Biasing centre has many advantages that overcome the objections to other designs. There is a minimal pre-load necessary to engage the gears but this does not cause excessive wear or harshness, the helical gear type is virtually invisible to the driver on normal road use as the gear/pocket friction simply does not occur.

So how does this ‘helical gear’ Torque Biasing centre work? as stated earlier there are six sets of helical gears, mounted parallel to the axle, each side ‘sun’ gear drives six helical gears, these mesh with six corresponding helical gears which in turn drive the opposite side ‘sun’ gear. The important factor is the fact that these helical gears are mounted in ‘pockets’ in the center carrier, so any radial load on the helical gears causes them the press against the side of the pocket creating friction. This is why we use six pockets as opposed to three in another well known brand, more pockets more friction and better Torque Biasing effect.

One of the drawbacks of the Torque Biasing centre is that it is always necessary to have some load on one wheel per axle. if there a no load situation eg cross axle the wheel with traction would only see approx three times the load on the wheel with no traction ie nothing!!. To overcome this, as stated earlier, the Ashcroft Torque Biasing centre is fitted with some preload springs to provide some loading to the side with no traction in the event of a cross axle, where this pre-load is not providing sufficient traction to the other side then one favourite trick is to apply a small amount of left foot brake whilst applying more throttle. This manoeuvre fools the diff by providing load to the non-traction side which is multiplied by the Torque Biasing centre (approx 3:1) to the other side, the loss of drive attributed to the brakes which are acting equally on both wheels is overcome by the additional throttle. In a car fitted with Automatic Traction Control this braking all takes effect automatically and the Torque Biasing centre provides additional traction by multiplying the ATC effect.

The Ashcroft Torque Biasing centre diff can be fitted in the front or the rear, in the rear you will not notice its there during normal road driving, in the front it will make the steering self centre a little more than normal when coming out of a corner but this is only very slight and will lessen within the first few hundred miles and also you will find you automatically adjust to this feeling very quickly.

So why use an Ashcroft Torque Biasing centre instead of a locker?? basically when driving on a low traction surface. for example sand, snow, or even wet grass rather than have a locked diff which can ’cause’ loss of traction for example when cornering as both wheel are forced to travel at the same speed, one wheel typically breaks traction allowing all the drive to the other wheel which will also break traction. The Ashcroft Torque Biasing will allow wheel speed difference but at the same time will always try to equalise the torque to each wheel, this reduces the possibility of a spin out situation.

Note : Due to the nature of the Torque Biasing diff we do not recommend the vehicle is brake tested on rollers, ask for a decelerometer to be used instead.

Please click here to see an interesting thread about these on the Defender 2 forum,

The ATB can be supplied alone or assembled in to a diff centre. Please see here for a price on a complete assembly,

Note this is not for the Salisbury axle, if you want an Torque Biasing centre for the Salisbury please see here.

They are made to fit metric bearings and a metric diff casing, we are able to supply a pair of these new journal bearings (RTC3095) and we would be happy to fit them if you would like, please see the drop down tab above when ordering.

Diff Pegging   This is an option for those customers who are fitting their Ashcroft Torque Biasing centre to a pegged diff.  It is not an adviseable option if the Ashcroft Torque Biasing centre is being fitted to a standard diff.   If you are pegging the diff the outside diameter must be reduced to clear the pegging pad.  If you do this op and then fit to a standard, non pegged diff, the Ashcroft Torque Biasing centre will be weaker .  For more information on pegged diffs please see here