differential question

[coletrain]

My friend came up to me today and asked me a question thinking that I'd know the answer but I was stumped.

When a car goes into a hard turn, enough where one front wheel is in the air, would the RPM's increase? Does this have anything to do with an LSD?
But the wheel that is in the air is on the drive axle, ex...(FWD-front wheel in air, RWD-rear wheel in air)

Thanks...

[gloryaccordy]

Depends. If it's an open diff, all the power would go to the free wheel, which= revving your car in the air until the tires hit the ground. If you have an LSD, some to all of the power would go to the outside tire, and unless I'm mistaken both wheels would remain at the speed of the tire on the floor. Hope that clears things up.

[sj960]

Technically, with an LSD, the tires would still travel at diff speeds, but it would minimize (A LOT) the spinning effect... If it was a spool however, they would always both spin together.... An LSD is designed to let the wheels spin at different speeds around a turn (mostly tight turns anyway) while having both pull in a straight line

[coletrain]

So the RPM's would rise even though one drive wheel is on the road?

[93accordexcoupe]

u wouldnt notice too much of a difference if the revs went up, how long could the wheel be off the road, really. unless its a big hair pin and ur flying i dont see any importance in this

[HondaFan81]

My friend came up to me today and asked me a question thinking that I'd know the answer but I was stumped.

When a car goes into a hard turn, enough where one front wheel is in the air, would the RPM's increase? Does this have anything to do with an LSD?
But the wheel that is in the air is on the drive axle, ex...(FWD-front wheel in air, RWD-rear wheel in air)

Thanks...

1) RPMs would increase if the driver kept trying to accelerate because the power with an open/standard differential would go to the wheel in the air and therefore at that moment would not be driving forward.

2) Your first question has nothing to do with LSD directly. An LSD stands for limited-slip differential, it is NOT a locking differential. Therefore, LSD are not designed to lock both wheels PERIOD, end of story. They simply resist differentiation up to the point they were designed to resist, past that they will act like a open/standard differential. Some LSD like the Quaife ATB will transfer power to the outside wheel on a turn to help pull you through the turn in a FWD car.

The rest of your question is unclear what you are asking...