The High Mileage Track car

Yes. We had a “medium” Gripper and wore it out after about 2 and a half years and 20ish track days. The new plates were only about £150 to replace (as a part) - it was done at the same time as a gearbox rebuild to replace some synchros which we then had to rebuild again after a slave failure.

Our Gripper is very noisy, very aggressive, but very effective on track.

Dowling93 said:

That's not too bad then! I was thinking a yearly thing. I'm guessing when you do end up replacing the plates you may as well freshen the box each time with new seals and bearings. Is it an easy job to do yourself if you had the time and patience?
It would be the aggressive one I'd go for seen as it's purely a track car

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@EthanMenace Has not fiddled with the Gripper yet. But I am sure with a few technical tips he could do it.

Me and the boys had the aggressive load grippers in our Clios for a number of years without a drop in performance, but we were exclusively trailering our cars to and from track. Looking at MOT history, I was doing ~2500 miles a year on track in mine.

Gav does alot of road miles in his, and that'll be where most of the wear is coming from.

I have no experience of using a helical style diff in a Clio. There are a few users on this site have got helical diffs in their Clios.

The Gripper is a plated diff and my understanding is that it is more aggressive, but with that added aggression you get noise. My car sounds broken when it moves at slow speeds and even pulling out of a garage in the pitlane on a track day will attract stares from people who hear the car and think that something is wrong with it. The plates wear and the Gripper should be serviced from time to time. I have been told that I should replace the gearbox oil more often to prolong the life of the Gripper.

A helical diff is usually a fit and forget scenario where it will require very little maintenance but is unlikely to perform as well as a plated diff.

Helical diffs can be cheaper to buy and cheaper to use in the long run.

Dowling93 said:

Would either of yee say that there is much of a difference between the helical style diffs and the gripper?
That's decent milage before needing to service it which would sway me a lot!

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A huge difference.
A helical equipped car won't see what way you've gone by the time you get to the first corner.

In fact, my pals gripper equipped 197 could easily out-accelerate my OEM LSD Megane out of corners, despite having over 100 more bhp and however much torque.

The performance is night and day different.