Slippy diffs, traction and stability oh my!

Poprin

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I learned to drive rear wheel drive cars back in my early 20's. Started with a (don't laugh) Volvo 740, then a BMW E32 735i, then an E30 325i. What I instantly liked about driving these cars is that if you did something wrong they would quite happily spit you off the road backwards into a field. Which quite frankly is part of the fun. I pirouetted my 325i off more roundabouts than I can remember in the wet!

My questions are... do all Z3's have traction (ASC)?

If the answer to this question is yes, one of the previous owners of my particular car has deactivated mine and removed the button and bulb. Which I am personally happy with as it makes it more fun, however what I definitely don't have is a slippy diff as my car can be quite prone to lighting up the inside rear wheel when driving enthusiastically.

This leads me to my second question... Limited slip diffs? Do any Z's come with them, standard or optional?

And finally... the ASC. Is this just traction or also stability control? I'm hoping just traction because that I don't mind but stability control really hacks me off!!
 
Brian4

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I think the 2.8's have LSD and my 3.0 has and also it has DSC which can be turned off.
Some Z3 have ASC and later ones have ASC+T

ASC is Automatic stability Control
ASC+T is Automatic stability Control + Traction
DSC is Dynamic stability Control
 
Antm72

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The 2.8's and the ///M have a slip diff not sure on the others.i presume the 3.0 has also.
The asc is fitted to my 2.8 it says on the module it is ACS+T so i presume stabibity and traction control.
 
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Brian H

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My 3.0 has an LSD as standard also has DSC, turn it fully off on track days though :)
 
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Poprin

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OK this makes sense. Thanks Brian, when you put it down on paper so to speak it makes perfect sense what the ASC stands for.

Traction control I don't mind, I have to say though stability control I'm not a huge fan of. Obviously it's there for safety and it has to account for the lowest common denominator, i.e. someone who's reaction to a slide would be to take their hands off the wheel, cover their eyes, scream and slam the brakes on.

However I find that when you are 'pressing on' in a car it has sometimes caused me more trouble than it's solved. Because if you react to what the car is doing and predict the path it's going to take by correcting the steering, throttle or brake input the the stability control kicks in and often backs off the power or applies the brakes to the wheels it feels need to slow down to correct the slide. Now that's great if you haven't just applied corrective lock and the weight shift causes the car to basically shoot off in a totally different direction than you planned.

Appreciate this isn't an issue in normal day-to-day driving and not suggesting I drive round like a hooligan but sometimes you see a cheeky little low speed corner with good visibility and you think... I wonder what the view from the side window looks like?
 
Grumps

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According to my build report mine has a 25% lsd.
 
Mint

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My 2.2 sport has a 25%LSD and DSC...
 
MartinN

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My old 1998 1.9 had the "sport" options that included the LSD, Al's traction control but no switch to turn it off
 
Brian H

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Poprin said:
OK this makes sense. Thanks Brian, when you put it down on paper so to speak it makes perfect sense what the ASC stands for.

Traction control I don't mind, I have to say though stability control I'm not a huge fan of. Obviously it's there for safety and it has to account for the lowest common denominator, i.e. someone who's reaction to a slide would be to take their hands off the wheel, cover their eyes, scream and slam the brakes on.

However I find that when you are 'pressing on' in a car it has sometimes caused me more trouble than it's solved. Because if you react to what the car is doing and predict the path it's going to take by correcting the steering, throttle or brake input the the stability control kicks in and often backs off the power or applies the brakes to the wheels it feels need to slow down to correct the slide. Now that's great if you haven't just applied corrective lock and the weight shift causes the car to basically shoot off in a totally different direction than you planned.

Appreciate this isn't an issue in normal day-to-day driving and not suggesting I drive round like a hooligan but sometimes you see a cheeky little low speed corner with good visibility and you think... I wonder what the view from the side window looks like?
Click to expand...
To be fair, I have not found the DSC to be too bad as a system, DSC has two parts to it, physical braking of the rear brakes and throttle management, If you switch off DSC half way this will disable the throttle management and by holding the DSC button down for more that 3 seconds will disable both.
 
Lee

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On the subject of diff's I looked into this a while back and found the M and maybe the 2.8 had clutch plated LSD's and the 3.0 and 2.2's has the torsen diff's which is a mechanical setup. There might be some other models but I didn't see any mention.

Lee
 
Shortie_gal

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I remember that day @Lee. Leaving tyre marks all over the place. I also think that was the day you tried to teach me to do a burnout? :coolsteer):rally:
 
Aceman

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Lee said:
On the subject of diff's I looked into this a while back and found the M and maybe the 2.8 had clutch plated LSD's and the 3.0 and 2.2's has the torsen diff's which is a mechanical setup. There might be some other models but I didn't see any mention.

Lee
Click to expand...
2.8's have the torsion diffs too, as far as I am aware it is only the ///M's that have clutch type LSD's.
 
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Zeti

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The firsts M44 came out of factory without ASC and with optional LSD 25%. It's my Zed's case, June '96. Just ASR was serie.
I have only one Lambda sensor, and no engine yellow light on the dashboard.
 
t-tony

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You managed a couple of nice ones outside the Swan last September if I recall .................... :whistle:

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