My first impression was, wow, these things are heavy!  They look nearly identical the to the stock diffs; same size, same color, yet when you pick up the pieces they just have so much more mass to them.  But I'm talking mass in a good way.  These things appear to be able to stand up to just about anything.  We'll be sure to see if that's true!

There's nothing like trying to disassemble and reassemble a diff that not only has 8 of the tiniest balls I've ever seen, but also has another 7 of the super-duper tiniest balls I've ever seen.  I dropped three of them on the floor at one time and spent about 20 minutes looking for them.  My recommendation, if you can, is to keep a magnet nearby so they don't go rolling onto the floor. If you can at least keep them on your workbench, you won't be down on your hands and knees wondering when the last time was that you swept the kitchen floor.  How long has that macaroni been down here???

Otherwise the MIP diff went together flawlessly.  It's obvious that the pieces are very high quality and machined using the tightest tolerances available.  It's nice that they provide you with two different types of grease, one for the thrust balls and the other for the ball-diff balls.

I would have likes to see a lock-nut instead of a standard nut on the other end of the 2mm adjustment screw.  On the stock diff, the metal screw threads into plastic, which is a natural tightening mechanism with the screw.  But metal on metal will almost always come loose over time without another type of locking mechanism.  I just used a small drop of a medium-strength thread locker on the nut and that should hold it for the life of the part, but still allow adjustment when necessary.  Which is surely going to happen the first time I shred that karbonite gear in there.

The screw tightens easily until it almost stops instantaneously.  There is no, "I wonder if it's tight, turn some more, I wonder if it's tight, turn some more..." and so on.  This thing tightens right up and when it does the diff is rock solid.  It's too tight at this point.  It appears to have a very small window of adjustment.  It's probably a half turn away from fully tight to fully tight where you'll have all your adjustment.  And it doesn't take but the tiniest turn of the screw to feel it loosen up or tighten up.  Once set, the diff feels 'super' smooth, after its namesake and I would say slips much less than the stock diff given the same pressure.  Which means better diff aktion and less slip. 

• All-metal construction
• Strong and durable
• 2mm screw uses a 2mm wrench (instead of the smaller 1.5mm)
• The nut seats in a small plastic insert so you don't need any other tools for adjustment.  I'm not sure if other diffs do this, but I found it handy.
• Perfect fit with the stock diff housing, bearings and dogbones
• Gear mesh equal to stock, not too tight and not too loose (using shimming washers)
• No binding with dogbones throughout the full range of motion of the a-arms.

• Standard 2mm nut instead of a lock-nut
• Plain black, doesn't have much flash to it, but it gets the job done

The MIP Super Diffs for AE's RC18T are a winner in my book.  I've only got one pack through them, but even after driving around on carpet for almost an hour with lots of hard starts and stops, the diffs never loosened, and the dogbones never popped out once.  Thank goodness!  They don't appear to show any signs of wear on the ends either where the dogbones are at their shortest position into the diff.  More runs will tell, but so far they are perfect, they fit into the perfectly, and hands down they work down-right super!

09/04/05 - I've now got about 6 packs on the MIP Super Diffs and they are holding up great.  They haven't lost their original diff setting and they don't show any signs of the slots opening or bending and they show almost no wear except for cosmetic scrapes.

miponline.com
rcboyz.com