legacycentral bbs

Forgive me if this has been directly addressed already. What years and models have have what kind of center Diffs. I know the Auto’s had the spiffy elec unit, but what about the MT’s? What piqued my interest was my exploding front CV episode. I drove the car with the front/drivers side CV entirely unattached for a good 25 mi. Now I thought the center diff in my 92 5mt was really just a 50/50 split, or a totally open diff. The car now has a tranny from a 95 Legacy, and while I was driving with 3wd it did not behave like a car with a locked center diff, or a open diff. It behaved like a viscous I think. The car would not go any ware until some RPM were built up, and if I gave it too much gas the revs would rise and the car would not accelerate like a slipping clutch. So I’m wondering if I was just wrong initially and they all had a lim slip in the center. If it was a totally open diff I really shouldn’t have been able to move at all, right?

You've got it right. The center differential is a conventional diff with a viscous limited-slip unit in it. The viscous unit is relatively weak; it's good enough to get you out of being stuck but can't ever really fully lock up apparently.

You had to rev up a little in order to heat the viscous fluid up enough to partially lock. If you revved too much I guess all the torque still ended up going to the missing axle.

So do all 5mt's have a Viscious center?

In the US yes. They come in different strengths though.