I think the LSD should be standard on all Civics

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VarmintCong

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It seems like the LSD really only helps to put maximum power on the road in case of uneven traction. So it helps with maximum performance on uneven surface. What happens when accelerating hard on a good traction, clear, hard road with a crappy traction shoulders (wet grass, mud, sand, snow) when one wheel gets off the road, with a) regular open differential, b) LSD?

Below (Wikipedia) it says it does not improve cornering or steering feel. So I'm really not sure I would want it if not strictly track racing or driving on bad roads, snow/ice patches, etc.

"The torque difference is zero if the differential is frictionless, and limited slip differentials, intended to increase power transfer, actually make torque steer much worse. For this reason, limited slip differentials by automobile transmission manufacturers like Quaife, Torsen, TrueTrac, Gold Trac have not been much used until recently, and require other measures to be implemented, such as careful positioning of suspension pivot points and driveshaft CV joints, in order to keep the resultant torque steer to a manageable amount. Limited slip differentials do not improve cornering, or steering feel, however they will improve power transfer in situations where one wheel experiences limited adhesion, and so may improve overall performance."
Here's where the LSD benefits, from my experience so far:
1. Rain - especially turning left or right onto a wet road. Massive wheel spin on the Sport if you get on the gas, with much greater traction in the Si, despite worse tires.
2. I also tried driving in the rain in second gear in a straight line and standing on the gas. This would spin both tires in the Sport, but in the Si, you get much better traction.
3. In the dry, you get the same effect but to a lesser degree, since the car usually doesn't really have enough power to spin the tires in the dry in a straight line.

Torque steer is the same - rare compared to Hondas I've had in the past - modern LSD and suspension design has mostly eliminated that.

One benefit of AWD is when driving in heavy rain, you can hit puddles on the highway at high speed and there's no tugging on the steering wheel, the car just plows through. Haven't tested this in the Si.
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Some cars have an electronically controlled limited slip differential and it supposedly works quite well. Car owners are laying down two strips of rubber & thinking they have a real mechanical LSD. Braking is applied to the spinning wheel & consequently transferring some power to the other side. This would be similar to how Electronic Stability Control works & should not cost anything because it's software controlled.

Over the years I've had cars with the emergency brake controlled by a hand lever between the front seats. If you were having traction problems on snow or ice you could carefully pull up on the brake handle which would apply some braking to the spinning wheel & therefore transfer some power to the other side. It actually worked & made a difference & got you going.
An electronically controlled LSD like in the GTI is still an LSD - it's not a brake-based system.

Cars without a mechanical LSD can use the brakes to do what you're talking about. BMWs have this. It sucks, no replacement for an LSD. I tried it in snow in my BMW - does nothing. I would turn it off and use the throttle to have the same effect.
 
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Maybe, but then the Si would become even less distinct than it already is. Give everyone the glory of LSD if the Si gets an extra turbo or something to maintain the status quo :yes:
Yes, raising the bar on all Civics will benefit Si buyers!
 

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LSD in any FWD creates one hell of a car in poor weather conditions. Prime example we lived in the mountains of Virginia in the early 2000’s. I ordered from my former employee a 2004 Ford Taurus Special Service Vehicle. Aka COP CAR. Loaded it up with everything and one unexpected option was a LSD for the FWD. Yes tires help but they are only as good as the driver and the car it’s self. With Firestone Winterforce tires little could stop that car. I could drive in 12-15 inches of snow and ice on gravel mountain roads while plow trucks got stuck. The LSD was a normal friction clutch unit. And I honestly miss the car a lot because it got use out of a lot of bad situations and bad weather. Put 204k on it in just 8 years. So yeah a LSD on the civic would be awesome. IMHO
 

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I have heard for years a LSD helps prevent understeer in a FWD. This would be contrary to what that Wikipedia article says which would lead you to believe it’s good straight-line only.

My RSX Type-S on 18s and summer tires would understeer badly on 90 degree turns taken at speed. It did worse on stock 16s with ASs. My gen 9 Si on crappy ASs and gen 10 Si on summers I could not get to exhibit understeer pushing even harder... at the realm that would have made the RSX leave the road. It really didn’t take much courage/speed to push the RSX into road-leaving understeer. We’re still talking residential road speeds (< 35 MPH) that’s made the RSX want to go straight into the trees. I’ve never been brave enough in the current car to push it hard enough to find its limits with its present rubber. I’m sure if I had it off public roads and on a track but (shrug) never done it... so the autocrossers can probably speak to where it gives up.

I can’t speak to all the intricacies of LSDs... but the idea they don’t do anything for cornering seems contrary to what I’ve felt on what was essentially a nice 7th gen with a pre-gen 8 Si motor and what the later cars would do. Also, Honda’s page vaguely describes its benefits and there’s a lot in the description beyond going in a straight line. I’m sure there’s been other benefits to where suspension geometry and tires themselves have improved, but I can’t believe the addition of a LSD didn’t help this one glaring weak spot on the RSX. I skipped gen 8 so I can’t say to whether they got them or not.

minimizes front-wheel slippage, improves steering precision and allows the driver to accelerate out of a corner sooner.

https://www.hondainfocenter.com/201...eatures/Helical-Limited-Slip-Differential-Si/
 


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Would be nice but at the end of the day it's still a civic, a car that was originally created to a be a low cost commuter car that's good on gas, it's actually a miracle that the Si got an lsd lol

If honda makes lsd standard across everything then every civic trim will have a hefty price bump because of things they will have to add. Appeal for the Si also drops significantly because why pay thousands more just for 30-40 more horses
 
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Would be nice but at the end of the day it's still a civic, a car that was originally created to a be a low cost commuter car that's good on gas, it's actually a miracle that the Si got an lsd lol

If honda makes lsd standard across everything then every civic trim will have a hefty price bump because of things they will have to add. Appeal for the Si also drops significantly because why pay thousands more just for 30-40 more horses
Several people have said it's a big cost - it's not - Mini Cooper had an optional LSD that was a $500 option, so that means it probably cost them $200 to add it. Even less if it's standard.

Also when you compare the Si to a comparable Civic, the cost premium is pretty low when you factor in the bigger brakes, bigger wheels, LEDs, better stereo etc - so the LSD cost has to be pretty low. The marketing campaign would probably be the greater cost though. If you just add it without marketing the crap out of it, there won't be much benefit to sales.

That's probably why they don't do it - it'll cost too much to explain to consumers why an LSD is like adding AWD.
 
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99% of consumers don't know what an LSD is or know its purpose.
but 99% of the consumers know what an AWD is.

AWD sells even if modern CUVs only provide like 50 ft lbs of EV rear tq.
That's only cause AWD has been heavily marketed. Consumers don't know AWD costs them performance in 98% of situations, and benefits them in like 2% of the time, and yet they pay for it cause of clever marketing.
 

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That's only cause AWD has been heavily marketed. Consumers don't know AWD costs them performance in 98% of situations, and benefits them in like 2% of the time, and yet they pay for it cause of clever marketing.
Yep. They’ll come off the line like a raped ape. I think there’s something like a 2 second difference in the 0-60 on a manual WRX vs a 5-60... but you’ve got to be willing the clutch drop it like you hate the car. Many won’t. I have... and it is fun but I don’t know how long they can take it. Despite a near 30% power advantage... they’re no faster once rolling than us.

They do get traction to accelerate in adverse weather. When I lived in upstate NY... I saw a few off the road as they didn’t seem to do any better on black ice on a corner... but had developed greater speed due to the 4 powered wheels and carried that greater speed further off the road. I carried a tow rope in my Xterra to pull wayward students in NYS back on the road when I was an instructor up there. AWD didn’t keep them on the road... though admittedly, we’re talking about a crowd that were out-of-staters who probably thought they were invincible in their AWD cars. Hell... I got passed doing 25-35 in a 50 on snow covered winding road ls with the more snow coming down only to see them in a snowdrift at the tree line a little ways up the road. Always enjoyed stopping to see how they were... pull them back on the road and just mention, “Yeah... I figured I’d catch up to you after after you passed me.” ? I’m a FL boy... had a 4x4 I’d keep in 4W-HI at moderate speeds when the roads were slush on my all-seasons and drove like the road was covered in ice. Because it was. That marketing fools a lot of people into a false sense of security that AWD = magic traction car.
 

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Several people have said it's a big cost - it's not - Mini Cooper had an optional LSD that was a $500 option, so that means it probably cost them $200 to add it. Even less if it's standard.

Also when you compare the Si to a comparable Civic, the cost premium is pretty low when you factor in the bigger brakes, bigger wheels, LEDs, better stereo etc - so the LSD cost has to be pretty low. The marketing campaign would probably be the greater cost though. If you just add it without marketing the crap out of it, there won't be much benefit to sales.

That's probably why they don't do it - it'll cost too much to explain to consumers why an LSD is like adding AWD.
I'm not saying the LSD itself is expensive, I'm saying Honda will have to add more differentiating factors to the Si/R which in turn will bump up the price of the car
 


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Would be nice but at the end of the day it's still a civic, a car that was originally created to a be a low cost commuter car that's good on gas, it's actually a miracle that the Si got an lsd lol

If honda makes lsd standard across everything then every civic trim will have a hefty price bump because of things they will have to add. Appeal for the Si also drops significantly because why pay thousands more just for 30-40 more horses
I agree that’s why certain body trims have different features but at least give the sport hatchback the LSD
 
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I'm not saying the LSD itself is expensive, I'm saying Honda will have to add more differentiating factors to the Si/R which in turn will bump up the price of the car
Yeah that's true, while I think they should bump the Si - the problem is the 2.0T is a $4500 upgrade on the Accord Sport - I don't know what else you get - just says 2.0T and heated seats, but that's a huge price increase if they use it in the Si.
 

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An electronically controlled LSD like in the GTI is still an LSD - it's not a brake-based system.

Cars without a mechanical LSD can use the brakes to do what you're talking about. BMWs have this. It sucks, no replacement for an LSD. I tried it in snow in my BMW - does nothing. I would turn it off and use the throttle to have the same effect.
I'm not familiar with how the GTI works. I was thinking about the Dodge system. They call it Brake Limited Differential and state it "functions similar to a limited slip differential and controls the wheel spin across a driven axle. If one wheel on a driven axle is spinning faster than the other, the system will apply the brake of the spinning wheel. This will allow more engine torque to be applied to the wheel that is not spinning."

This system is standard on some trim levels & people are surprised how well it works & say they can lay down 2 strips of rubber.
 
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I'm not familiar with how the GTI works. I was thinking about the Dodge system. They call it Brake Limited Differential and state it "functions similar to a limited slip differential and controls the wheel spin across a driven axle. If one wheel on a driven axle is spinning faster than the other, the system will apply the brake of the spinning wheel. This will allow more engine torque to be applied to the wheel that is not spinning."

This system is standard on some trim levels & people are surprised how well it works & say they can lay down 2 strips of rubber.
Can't you do the same putting your left foot on the brake pedal?

About the GTI/GLI, people hear electronically controlled and think the GTI doesn't have a mechanical LSD, but it does, that's all I meant.
 

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Can't you do the same putting your left foot on the brake pedal?

About the GTI/GLI, people hear electronically controlled and think the GTI doesn't have a mechanical LSD, but it does, that's all I meant.
You probably can use the brake pedal to some degree. But I'm presuming the computer can act faster & be more accurate regarding pressure, sort of like it does with ABS and ESC.
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