I bet it's a ThorsenGlesson differential. I run detroit lockers in my jeeps and they only bark when you get on it and they lock. I've heard people say that spools are relatively quiet around corners when you're not "on it". I know they are a bitch to push in a turn, but not much more.

if you want to have fun the spool is the way to go for sure...

i can break the rear end loose like nothing around corners but then if i go easy i have no problems

like you say your not going to be running pump gas so its not gonna be a raniy weather driver anyways. i say go for it and slap a spool in it

there is nothing worse than a burnout and one tire not grabbing as good as the other like a limited slip or traction lock will do...

just my thoughts

What is the ultimate street/strip/roadcourse rear? Traction lock?

I'd like to hear Butch's (and others) thoughts of driving a spooled race car on the street though. I'm about to order it, but I'll wait 'til tomorrow.

Thanks again Larry, GBM, Rob, Chip, and Jas.

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Ben
Grabber Green '70 Mach I 351C 4V
Robbin Egg Blue '79 Fairmont 351C 4V

I've driven mine on the street a lot over the years, though not lately. Bottom line, to me anyway, is if you plan on driving it like a regular car (regardless of how often) then stay away from the spool.

By regular car I mean, you won't want to take a corner with any kind of speed bacause the front end will want to keep going straight. I always drove mine like I was at the track on the return road observing the 15 mile an hour speed limit. If I did find a nice straight open piece of real estate, then I'd nail it and have some fun but other than that I drove it like it was broken.

When I first got the car I ran around with it with a set of 3.89's on a mini spool and had the stock (rebuilt) 390 GT engine in it. I would drive it to Fremont and back and it would run 13.70's, it was a fun car but the mini spool got to be a pain in the a@@ in no time.

In the last 10 years the car has only been street driven to the local car shows and rarely over 30 miles per hour, under those conditions the spool isn't any more trouble than the front springs and shocks or the loose convertor.

Mine would never "bark" the tires unless I was atempting a U-turn or I applied a little throttle while still in the turn, more than a very little throttle would be big trouble...lol.

Sorry to be so long winded.

It was also really hard on tires. For a while I used tube type M&H Racemasters. The sidewalls got twisted all to hell around turns... and on a couple of occasions, they pinched holes in the tubes (which sucked). They also didn't last very long. Switching to a Detroit Locker made the car MUCH more managable on the street. It's also stood up to repeated dragstrip launches on the bottle. The only problem, was once when shifting into 3rd gear, it must have become unlocked somehow, because jolted sideways and the rearend started weaving back and forth. I stayed in it, but almost let out. The guy giving out the timeslips made a comment about the car getting squirrly mid track... I probably should have let out of it.

I drive the car a LOT on the street. It sees quite a bit more street than strip time, so the DL will stay. If a car didn't see much street time at all, I'd probably get a full spool. Of course my car is a nitrous 4-speed, so it is bound to get squirrly from time to time. You'd probably be fine at the track with either the DL or the spool, but I wouldn't use a limited slip (traction lock) in a drag application. They are too unreliable.

Good Luck!

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Mike Burch
66 mustang real street
302 4-speed 289 heads
10.63 @ 129.3
http://www.geocities.com/carbedstangs/cmml_mburch.html
http://www.fortunecity.com/silverstone/healey/367
http://www.mustangworks.com/cgi-bin/moi-display.cgi?220

We're gonna go ahead and try a full spool. Melissa likes her '95 Mustang so she doesn't feel the need to drive this one on the street like she used to.
I'll hang on to the trac-loc in case it becomes a street car again.