Hydraulic propshaft disconnect
Discussion
At Autosport today I saw a rallycross car with a handbrake with two master cylinders. On further enquiry it seems they run a Sadev propshaft disconnect unit on the shaft to the front diff. The reason being that it's 4wd with no centre diff.
First point for discussion is do we agree that the disconnect on the rear diff would be better? It wasn't possible on the car in question as they ran a rear transaxle.
Anyone have any experience of the unit or another variant? I did go to the Sadev stand but there wasn't any body there who was familiar with the unit. I've only found diff mounted units on their website.
For clarity, the stand alone unit puts a permanent 4wd car into two wheel drive when you use the hydraulic handbrake. Permanent 4WD cars with no centre diff and LSDs front and rear do tend to be a handfull in tight corners, especially on dirt.
First point for discussion is do we agree that the disconnect on the rear diff would be better? It wasn't possible on the car in question as they ran a rear transaxle.
Anyone have any experience of the unit or another variant? I did go to the Sadev stand but there wasn't any body there who was familiar with the unit. I've only found diff mounted units on their website.
For clarity, the stand alone unit puts a permanent 4wd car into two wheel drive when you use the hydraulic handbrake. Permanent 4WD cars with no centre diff and LSDs front and rear do tend to be a handfull in tight corners, especially on dirt.
The front diff disconnect is the lesser of two evils, as it requires "clutch down" when you use the handbrake. Much better to disconnect the rear diff and leave the front wheels connected to the engine (useful if you get a bit keen with the h/b and need to get the show pointing the right way again too......). But, if you have a rear transaxle, that doesn't have a rear "propshaft" to disconnect, then it's still better to completely disconnect the front to enable the rear wheels to underspeed enough.
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