Please explain braking lock on differentials

[lthull]

Can someone please explain to me how you tuned your braking lock diff settings, and how those settings benefit your car's stopping ability? Is there a good reason to have your braking lock high, because I can't see how having your brakes lock up easier is supposed to be benefitial? Also, how does the lock setting interact with the strength setting under the "brake" advanced set up.

I feel like this is the one aspect of my game that is lagging behind, and not just understanding locking diff and brake tuning, but also knowing when and how to brake. Any advice would be welcome, and it would be great if you could provide example of how these setting should differ between RWD and 4WD. Thanks.

[wholemealhepple]

Give it some and let the computer decide?

Faster cheif...

[wholemealhepple]

Lock is when both wheels on the one axle get the same amount of tourqe. And its about conering and traction In general.

Also the words lock and unlock can be/are used interchangeably... go figure.

[eddskitz]

Originally posted by WholemealHepple:

Lock is when both wheels on the one axle get the same amount of tourqe. And its about conering and traction In general.

Also the words lock and unlock can be/are used interchangeably... go figure.

Not correct....

[eddskitz]

Originally posted by lthull:

Can someone please explain to me how you tuned your braking lock diff settings, and how those settings benefit your car's stopping ability? Is there a good reason to have your braking lock high, because I can't see how having your brakes lock up easier is supposed to be benefitial? Also, how does the lock setting interact with the strength setting under the "brake" advanced set up.

I feel like this is the one aspect of my game that is lagging behind, and not just understanding locking diff and brake tuning, but also knowing when and how to brake. Any advice would be welcome, and it would be great if you could provide example of how these setting should differ between RWD and 4WD. Thanks.

It's for when you let off the gas, it controls how much ENGINE BRAKING is allowed to transmit into the differential.

Basically, for AWD, you want the rear stronger, or RWD strongish it'll keep you stable during corner entrance.

[wholemealhepple]

Originally posted by eddskitz:

Originally posted by lthull:

Can someone please explain to me how you tuned your braking lock diff settings, and how those settings benefit your car's stopping ability? Is there a good reason to have your braking lock high, because I can't see how having your brakes lock up easier is supposed to be benefitial? Also, how does the lock setting interact with the strength setting under the "brake" advanced set up.

I feel like this is the one aspect of my game that is lagging behind, and not just understanding locking diff and brake tuning, but also knowing when and how to brake. Any advice would be welcome, and it would be great if you could provide example of how these setting should differ between RWD and 4WD. Thanks.

It's for when you let off the gas, it controls how much ENGINE BRAKING is allowed to transmit into the differential.

Basically, for AWD, you want the rear stronger, or RWD strongish it'll keep you stable during corner entrance.

Your the ENGINE BREAK...

[eddskitz]

Lol, I am pretty good at breaking stuff.

[brielga]

For starters I always recomend a tight car on breaking and loose on turn exit. Why? You have to learn first to brake in a straight line before the turn, shift weight to the front gain traction and begin to turn. How you manage this? Look for the word understeer and do that with the front axle and the opposite with the back. Dont go to the far end of any of those.

Ive been using some setups of the front runners and found they have brake balance to the back and very stiff suspensions, which is against the logic and what makes this game a 100% not a sim (I have motorsport experience for 30 years) so dont try to learn with these setups. The car wont follow the bumps and will tend to oversteer on turn entry which is no good for early stages of learning.
The most you can stay straight and the most your wheels keep contact with the surface, the better the traction.
Then you will feel the need on faster turn entry and you will be able to have a loose car....oversteer on turn entry and gas since the beggining of the turn.
At some point you will be able to just touch the brakes to shift the weight, turn and control the turn more with gas / brake than the wheel as you will be pointing to the right direction from turn entry.

[Aurora]

Originally posted by eddskitz:

It's for when you let off the gas, it controls how much ENGINE BRAKING is allowed to transmit into the differential.

Is this true?
I was under the impression it was limiting the difference in the wheels rotational speeds? That makes sense in my mind since the higher braking lock % seem to help keep the back in check under heavy braking.
Look up 1.5 and 2 way diffs - You may get what im trying to say

[kobeshow]

Originally posted by Aurora:

Originally posted by eddskitz:

It's for when you let off the gas, it controls how much ENGINE BRAKING is allowed to transmit into the differential.

Is this true?
I was under the impression it was limiting the difference in the wheels rotational speeds? That makes sense in my mind since the higher braking lock % seem to help keep the back in check under heavy braking.
Look up 1.5 and 2 way diffs - You may get what im trying to say

well it is both, you lift off, you engine brake and depending on your diff settings your wheels slow down at different/same speeds.

[eddskitz]

Originally posted by kobeshow:

Originally posted by Aurora:

Is this true?
I was under the impression it was limiting the difference in the wheels rotational speeds? That makes sense in my mind since the higher braking lock % seem to help keep the back in check under heavy braking.
Look up 1.5 and 2 way diffs - You may get what im trying to say

well it is both, you lift off, you engine brake and depending on your diff settings your wheels slow down at different/same speeds.

Yeah, the two differential settings work together.

[JESSE JAMES]

simply said, lock off is the world, acts like the real wheel in the car.
Lock on is your computer All the other answers are good too

[Simon said EAT DUST PLAYER_1 !]

Originally posted by JESSE JAMES:

simply said, lock off is the world, acts like the real wheel in the car.
Lock on is your computer All the other answers are good too

I think you meant to say something very correct - yet the words bent themselves while you were saying it.

So allow me to rephrase:

Differentials in their purest form do not have any "locking" (==braking)-capabilities. Their raison d'être (reason to exist) was to allow an input-force to be split-up to two exit-forces. To be more precise: one spinning stick with inherent inertia moves two other sticks. Without a differential you can only make all sticks spin at the same speed and with a direct, "solid" connection the force applied would be equal to both exiting-routes.
Now in a car:
During cornering on a grippy surface (while grip and traction are equal or greater than the amount of force applied) you would be presented with the outer wheels rolling along a larger circle than the inner wheels - thus having to travel differing distances to complete a turn thus for the same change of directional angle of the vehicle, the two wheels travel a slightly different stretch of road.

But well: here's a paradox, right there: we said, when we do this without a differential (by the means of a direct drive-connection) wheels could not travel but at the same speeds and distances. Well: our world does not consist of 2D-elements only. Hence a car with locked or direct drive to inner and outer driven wheels would start to "hop", because the force collecting at the wheel that is forced to roll over the shorter distance will eventually overpower the grip&traction-potential by unloading on the weakest link inside that car's system: the tyres.

Hence the mechanical component named "differential" was born (luckily there are an abundance of video-resources available on youtube, today that can show you the mechanical design of such a device).

Now for the problem with such a device: We learned that a mechanical force likes to unload on the weakest part of the chain on the way from it's source to it's planned destination. To generalise our observation we can deduct: a (mechanical) force likes to unload on the shortest or easiest path to any available point of potential. In other words: it will always travel the path of least-resistance.

So what happens if not all driven wheels have the same amount of traction and you apply a force to the "drive-train" that overpowers only one of the driven wheels while staying within the traction-limits of all the others?


With an open system, all the force will unload on that single wheel that got overpowered by it. That's when you got yourself "stuck".

So what do we need in order to get some force to apply to the other driven wheel(s)?
The answer is EITHER:

a) a solid mechanical connection linking all driven wheels and the power-source together
b) a braking-force at every (relevant) junction of the drive-train

The oldest idea hence was to build lock-able differentials that could be turned into solid links on-demand: that's what can be found in the oldest types of offroad-vehicles: your classic Landrovers, Jeeps, tractors and (what Americans like to callI them:) trucks. The idea being: when on the paved road: you'd never run out of traction so you'd run them diffs opened up for better handling on-road. Once offroad and combatting frequent slippage at the wheels, you'd lock the drive-train into solid 2x2 or 4x4-mode (or with heavy machinery, you'd simply lock all the driven wheels' drives together, no matter how many of them there are)

Yet to combat the disadvantages of having to choose one handling-characteristic over the other: self-locking differentials were explored - of which there are many types and evolutions, today.

So in essence: knowing how the power of your vehicle gets routed inside the drive-train will make you understand and utilize the handling-characteristics of your car better. And yes: modern AWD-drivetrains will have a profound influence over the overall handling-characteristics of your vehicle, just as much as chassis-settings and -properties have. You can thus create a very unstable chassis and marry it with a specifically--defined drive-train layout, which will create something that you will still be able to control despite the inherent chassis-instability. This is the high art of desinging and setting up your competition-machine. You as the driver have to understand how it uses and applies power, in order to really remain in control and not get caught off-guard by it's potential deficiencies.


TL;DR

competition-grade differentials and - in general - AWD drive-trains come in many flavours. With a trick set-up you can actually set up the rest of your suspension and chassis to be quite the opposite of "stable" and still maintain in control at all times thanks to the way you can reign-in the power on and off-throttle.

Ever looked into what certain motorsport-capable differentials (that can take the demanded power without exploding) actually cost? It's an eye-opener, really!

[BadNyga]

Looking forward to your next random article on this forum. I hope I won't miss any... :)

[Simon said EAT DUST PLAYER_1 !]

Originally posted by r3pr3z3nt:

Looking forward to your next random article on this forum. I hope I won't miss any... :)

proud to bring you many more jokes, lost-in-translation-style!

[a basic bitch]

Tight differentials create more wheelspin during turns, more straight-line acceleration overall. This makes for slightly faster mistake recovery, but its more of a driving style preference. Strong differentials tend to make the car feel like it is riding on a rail or something at full throttle/brake.

Loose ones allow for less wheelspin and are generally allow the driver to use more throttle before spinning tires in a turn. This generally makes cars easier to drive without spinning if you have poor throttle control. Loose differentials can also make it kind of difficult to go straight if the road is anything but smooth. Loose braking differentials make the car go sideways more easily while braking.


DO NOT touch the differentials if you're having trouble sliding the car around corners. Altering the differentials is the fastest way to change how a car feels while sliding and recovering.

There is obviously a lot more to it, but those are the basics.