Newbie Looking at BDR Cobra (help)

[Excaliber]

I know I've been a little hard on BDR but this open differential thing still bothers me...

We have a short twisty road race track here in Honolulu (1.3 miles and LOTS of corners). Coming out of a corner when the weight shifts to one side; if you don't have some kind of posi track the inside tire spins and just goes up in smoke. On my Excalibur when I finally 'broke' the posi unit it was a joke trying to get around the corners, I had NO traction! Lap times were dramatically reduced as a result. Straight line performance (drag strip) was unaffected.

I suspect the open diff on a BDR (and likely many other replicas) works well in a straight line because: There is not a lot of 'body roll' or 'lift' to favor one rear wheel over another. Thus, both tires get about the same traction.

An open diff would also be SAFER around corners as the 'inside wheel' will break loose rather than BOTH wheels. While this is the 'slow' way around the corner, it is not near as likely to 'throw out the rear end' in a tail slide, as is the case with a posi unit. The rear end coming out is most often reffered to 'throttle induced over steer', difficult if not impossible to do with an open diff.

If your not road racing\track running it, an open diff will save a few bucks and will likely make it a safer car on the street.