I just found this site tonight and this is my first post, but I just wanted to weigh in here on how this locker works in a front end. I have worked on vehicles for the last 20 years. I have been a very active member of Toyota Territory Off-Road Association for over 10 years. I have worked side by side with many fabricators of Shrockworks. We even installed my aussie locker back in the day on the front of my Toyota Tacoma at their shop. I have installed many of these lockers in probably a dozen different models of Toyota. I can tell you first hand how this locker works. In mud, loose dirt, loose soil, turning with the 4 wheel drive engaged is not a huge deal. It will tear up the trail more and one tire will be getting dragged a little while turning as the tires are traveling the same speed yet different distances while turning. Once again, in loose stuff, it is not a big deal. I did notice in my Tacoma that some turns that were extremely tight and I barely made before installing the locker were not able to be made in one forward motion anymore depending on how much traction the ground had. Obviously the more traction you have, the more the front end will fight you. The simple solution to this is to put the vehicle in 2wd where no torque is applied to the front end. No torque = unlocked and will turn normal. Any torque at all and it will lock up. Most people have a misconception about the locker unlocking during turns while in 4wd. This is completely wrong, unless you were able to coast through the turn (zero throttle). If you live in the mountains and often travel on hard rock, and have to make turns, I guarantee you will not like the locker in 4wd. Now in that situation with a lot of traction, I would not see why it would be a issue to simply move to 2wd and your problem is solved. Just understand that your driving habits will have to change a little once you install the front locker. I had some misconception when I installed mine that I would simply have more traction and everything else will be the same. That is not realistic expectations. I am not trying to sway anyone from getting a locker here, I just don't want anyone to be upset with the final outcome. A locker will make a night and day difference in traction and I feel even with the changes that were required in my driving habits off-road, it was well worth the money. The other thing I wanted touch on is please understand that when a differential slips, that is some serious torque that your axles are not having to deal with. Once you lock and differential, and the additional traction no longer allows slipping, all that torque is going to look for the next weak spot. Usually this is in the form of a cv axle. This is especially true when the axles are at more extreme angles such as in a full turn. Once you understand what I call the "rules" of a locker, you shouldn't have a problem. I personally never give much more than half throttle when in a full turn locked. For whatever reason, this is even more true in reverse (I am not a engineer, so I cant explain it). If you want to find out what your axles are made of, just leave it locked and turn the wheel to full lock (turn) and put it in reverse and floor it. Almost always this will result in a broken cv shaft. So just try to keep your wheel semi straight and go easy on the throttle when locked and you will be fine. Sorry for the long post, just thought I might be able to give you all some real world experience on what I encountered with these lockers. They are solid as a rock and I have beat on it for years now and never had a problem. As I said the CV shafts will break long before the differential does, which honestly is a good thing because a diff, transmission, transfer case, or output shafts are all more expensive (and a lot more work) than a cv shaft. I will definitely be getting one of these lockers once it is released.
