radioman789

hi all after trashing another ring and pinion gear on the front of my savage i am thinking of just keeping it as a 2 wheel drive by taking the fron diffout what do you guys think and why thanks radman

HerrSavage

My front-diff has recently gone out, and I'm not sure, but I THINK it's faster.. And more fun to drive.. Donuts and fishtailing and stuff.. Cool..

46u

My Feedback: (3)

For bashing I guess it is OK if you do not run in rough terrain but since I race it would affect the handling in a negative way to much. I most just be lucky, as after well over 5 gallons I have never striped a diff. I do not get real big air only about 5 or 6 feet.

-whitey-

ive heard that if u have a four wheel drive car or truck and something happens to ur car/truck causing it to lose its four wheel drive it the engine might create too much rpm and damage the engine but im not sure if thats true

tmodlin

It is a monster truck. How many monster trucks do you see that are 2wd?


Get an aluminum diff cup and some good silicon oil and say good bye to your diff problems.

Did you reuse your plastic stocker after you shredded the first one? They can break and you wont even notice until you land hard or something.

Chronic

The biggest downside is that the rear diff and rear output are now seeing 100% of the load, instead of the 50/50 split that it had before. Even with functioning 4wd, the rear diff sees that 100% load when popping wheelies, so it's not so much of a concern. 2WD IS faster, since there is less parasitic drivetrain loss. The engine won't see any increase in RPM at any given speed, when comparing 2wd to 4wd if that is the only change.


Don't be ghetto about it though. Remove all of the front diff drive components and make it a clean conversion. One big benefit of 2wd is the reduced weight, but you won't see that benefit if you leave all of the 4wd components in place. A mid-tank mod would restore some balance to the chassis after such modifications.

black mamba

Mine's been 2WD for a couple of months now and there are no issues to date. I just pulled the front dogbones out and removed the front driveshaft-the front diff is still in there and doesn't need to be removed. The truck performs awesome and frankly, it's not like the ho hum, everyone's got one, 4WD Savage. The steering response is so much better in 2WD and the performance is great. This is all just my opinion, but since I actually have what you are asking about, it should have some weight behind it. As for all that power going to just the rear tires now, get a rear locker or fill up that rear diff with the thickest silicone you can find to optimize your traction. You'll just have to break yourself of the habit of mashing the gas on hard surfaces with loose dirt or other loose stuff on top of it. Ease into the throttle and it will perform just fine. If anything, running in 2WD actually makes you more aware of how you are driving the truck and you will see your driving skills improve after a few tanks. I say try it and see how you like it.

black mamba

When you pull a wheelie in a 4WD Savage, the power seen at the rear wheels is still 50%. The power split happens at the trans, which is locked at 50 front/50 rear. So even if the front wheels are up in the air, the front is still getting 50% power. The rears are just bearing the brunt of the load and providing the bite, but those fronts are turning and seeing just as much power as the rears. That fact will never change with a locked trans. Now remove the front driveshaft and the power that would've turned the front tires is now "absorbed" by the rears because the rear shaft is the only output source now and thus the rearend has no choice but to see 100% of the power. Keep in mind not a thing has changed with the trans; the front and rear outputs are still locked and will always be. Throw the front shaft back in and you will resume 50/50 power distribution. Hopefully that didn't confuse anyone.

Chronic

Think of it this way... the front diff normally does half the work when all four tires are on the ground, right? Now you don't have a front diff in the equation... but the truck still requires the same amount of force to move it. 100% of that force is being transferred through the rear diff.


I'm aware there is a 50/50 split of power coming out of the transmission, but that's not even what I was talking about. The load that a diff sees has to do with alot more variables than how much power is being fed to it. You could probably send 10hp through these diffs without any problems if the tires were off the ground.

black mamba

No. That is not possible with a locked trans. There is no slippage or torque biasing in the Savage trans to allow 100% of the power to reach the either the front or rear tires if the truck has both driveshafts in place. The trans outputs are physically locked and thus each shaft will see 50/50 until one shaft is either removed or if one breaks. That's just the way mechanics dictates things.

Now the weight distribution will be affected to where the weight that will be felt on rear tires when pulling a wheelie will drasitcally increase; weight transfer is what it is referred to. During a wheelie, the rear tires will still be seeing 50% of the engines power/torque, but they will be supporting more of the trucks weight, like 100% of it in a wheelie, and that will create driveline strain and put a load on the rear diff and related components. The rear tires see the brunt of this because they are the only power path that are capable of transferring power to the ground while holding 100% of the truck's weight on them. The bottom line is the rearend will not see 100% power because those front tires are still seeing the other 50%, even though they are just hanging up in the air. They are still turning exactly the same revolutions as the rears and seeing exactly the same amount of power as the rears because they are physically locked to the rears via the mechanics of the trans. Physically locked is the key thing here. The only thing that is different in this situation is the front tires are supporting 0% of the truck's weight. Hope this helps.

Chronic

Dude, you just came back and disagreed with me... and then reinforced my point in the first part of your second paragraph. Go back and read post #6. I never said that the rear diff would be fed 100% of the power. POWER---LOAD... two different words. Hope this helps.

HerrSavage

I know you guys'll laugh, but here's a few pics of my now basically RWD bone-stock Savage 25 with a toasted front diff drag-racing a highly modifiend, lowered Sav with a Nova 28.. Yes, he was insanely more powerful - but HE was sliding all over the place.. I was just flooring it, but my truck very obviously 10x easier to control at WOT than his was at half.. It was just a short straight with a curve, and I basically beat him every time, cuz he was either flying off the track, crashing into me from behind(when he DID manage to get the traction, yes it was a missle..) - was just all over the place.. Was just for fun and goofing around anyway - but it was a good time.. Me rikey RWD!!..:

But ps, yes, lining up for jumps on a dirt surface is a tad more difficult.. But the whole "RWD is more difficult to drive" thing is totally minor IMO - it's fun!- like with every car or truck - it's fun getting to know it and learning how it drives..

burkes_22

i agree with both bumperdragger and chronic, the POWER is 50/50 to both wheels in 4wd and 2wd, but the LOAD on the rear diff in 2wd is much greater than if the truck was in 4wd because the truck has to try and move and then it has the increased load of trying to turn the front tyres as well,of course if the truck was in 4wd the load would be split by the 2 diffs but not 50/50 because of the weight transfer over the rear wheels, sorry im not real good at explaining things but you get what im tryin to say?

radioman789

thanks all for the replies and just to explain a little bit further i am using ally diff cups with spiders all round and shimmed internally with 5k diff oil and new gasket. brand new ring and pinion gear ( whole brand new diif unit i only used the original plastic casing ) and my intention is removing ALL front end diff components to lighten the truck but i am still stumped as to how i stripped the internal diff

American Patriot

After busting a diff my buddies savage is real rear drive now. It does seem a little quicker then before. The front is quite light and skims the surface under full throttle.

One big plus is that you wont bend the front dog bones to the wheels when the truck does cart wheels.