does it matter if its for a 2010 mustang or do i have to get one made for fox mustangs?
As long as there for a Ford 8.8 rear, they'll work in yours. BTW, if you're going to 3.73's in your 5 speed TC, get ready to find out 1st gear is just about useless.
yeah, first is gone quick, I have 3.73 gears, with the 87 TC "155" case gear box (3.97 first gear) and a 25.6 tall tire
my 3.73 came from a ranger rear end...
you will be grabbing 2nd when the nose is in mid lift!
well I also went with an Alum drive shaft (about 8lbs lighter than the stock steel, and I machined about 4lbs off the flywheel too)
If you're looking for bang-for-the-buck value, forget the rear gears and just install the Boport cam and valvetrain you've got.
alright thank you. my friend has 3.73 in his turbocoupe and i like it. i dog out going into
3rd.
the boport cam and valvetrain is too pricey for me right now too have them installed and i dont have the experience to do that myself yet. im going to buy a stage 3 head and cam hopefully in the winter and do a head swap which ive done before so i have the confidence to do it. the bo 1.9 and valve train is forsale.
Sr... I doubt you will notice much of a differance, you already have 3.55 gears, so 3.73 isnt that much of a diff.
get a alum drivesfat from a 96 4door explorer, it is 51' long and have it cut down to 48 inches.
also get a lighter flywheel...
with what you loose off rotating mass will make the car feel that much faster
but if you have the gears just laying around (like I did) go ahead and pop them in
does a lightweight fly wheel and alum. drive shaft make a noticable different?
come drive my 85 TC and tell me!
huge, the accel is much crisper, and the decell drops quicker
I have to say,when I installed my aluminum driveshaft,I could feel a noticeable difference. No,it didn't feel like more power to me,but,a smoother feel.
Am I the only one that doesn't get going up in gear when it renders the first gear useless? Why not use a lower rearend gear so that you can make use of the mechanical advantage that 1st is there to give you? Let me find my Excel document and it'll make sense what I'm trying to describe with optimal gearing ratios at different speeds. Or course, with such a steep 1st and fixed, 1st is also useless for pretty much everything so even with the high advantage of such gearing, it can't be used with most tires if you've got the torque and the performance boost is only there for the first few mph.
You will be let down by the cost is increasing your gearing by 5%, only being able to make use of like 2-3% of that when there is a larger fractional delay since the speed of the rpm's increasing will be even quicker while there is a limit in how fast a human can throw the transmission into second. That is, if you have the torque to back it up and you already should. Such gearing would make more sense on a standard I4.
(http://home.comcast.net/~seekproj/Gearing_I4.png)
I have 3.55's in the Sport.I also have a 3.73 diff in the garage,but I figure the 3.55's are plenty for the daily driving I do.
I have 2:73 gears in my automatic equipped car, I'm thinking about 3:45s , of course I'm not switching to an 8.8
"Am I the only one that doesn't get going up in gear when it renders the first gear useless?"
Uhmm, no, see my first reply.
My oldest son runs 3.73's in his 2.3T stang with the 3.97 first geat T5, and he's pulling second halfway across an intersection.
*edit* Yeah, I understand your comment. Still, people everywhere are always wanting more gear when you really don't need more if you're already making your stronger transmission gears useless. At automatic is completely different though - you can feed them quite a bit and they'll keep making you faster while they utilize each gear to its fullest. *edit*
3.55's and 3.73's (and even 4.10's) work well in v8 transmissions, and especially in automatics, because the 1st gear is much higher. AOD's have a 2.4 1st and 4r70w's have a 2.84 - the low gears here help utilize low gears in the rearend. If you're pushing 4x gear multiplication in 1st (3.97 with the 4 cylinder T5's), there is very little that can be gained other than headaches. If you have to basically shift right into 2nd, imaging the above graph with 1st gear flat-lined to the same gearing multiplication as 2nd - it will make you slower. This is what I'm trying to get at.
The Saturn I used to have had a 1st gear of 3.25 and a final drive of 4.063. 13.2x gear multiplication on a lowly 120hp motor was already borderline usable (and quite touchy at that) - dealing with a car with more gearing in 1st with double the torque over a Saturn would tell me that there is absolutely NO reason to add more gearing anywhere. If anything, the cars could use less gearing. At the track, the 3.55's for the T5 are plenty and on the street, unless you're trying to launch hard, you can easily get the boost going with such a steep 1st and less gearing in the rearend.
*edit 2*
I had severe traction issues with stock TC 225 tires when my auto transmission would shift into 2nd (1.55) with 3.55 rearend gearing (5.5x total) with the transmission's hard shifts, on completely dry pavement with semi-performance street tires. While it moved well in the seat-of-pants feel in 2nd and 3rd, I ended up moving down to 3.08's which are right in the middle of 2.73's and 3.55's in terms of gearing gains and lost no time to 70mph since I wasn't having to let off the gas for the 1-2 shift. It still breaks them loose if I'm on anything but perfect pavement but safety was a major concern and I didn't want to go with wider tires. It gets quite bad when every time you go into 2nd, the car fishtails and you have to let off the gas. It's easy to go overboard for a specific setup. People should keep such things in mind also - it's best to keep the power where it's usable than to just spin the tires. 1st gear in most vehicles can already get them spinning so why waste all that power that 1st is there to give you?
For the track, you want to be at the top of forth when you cross the line, regardless of tranny. That way you are getting all of the power to the ground that you have gearing for.
... I should have said 1:1, not forth.
Yeah, and looking at the chart, this is about 127mph with 3.73's. Still though, there is also a slight problem with such simple statements if utilizing 1st is actually a waste of time for any of a few reasons.
So you have this problem too. I still have 3.73s. First is quite useless with a large amount of throttle from a stop unless I'm at the track. Squiggly black marks are not fun every time I want to accelerate quickly from a stop. The car will spin the tires on a OD-2 down shift at 70 mph which is kinda scary...
Do you really downshift to 2nd at 70mph? That just doesnt sound like a good idea.:wtf:
Not sure most transmissions will go down to 2 at 70mph with 3.73's in the rear but it's certainly possible at higher rpm's.
It kicks down to 2nd for a split second then back up to 3rd. It's supposed to do that with the valve body mods. The way the trans is built it ain't going to hurt it. I just scares the out of me when it does it:hick:. It won't go down to 2nd above 70 mph. With the non lock up converter I'm turning 2800 rpm at 70 mph.
I have 4.10's in my 88 Sport with AOD transmission..... wish I put in 4.30's
I leave it in D driving around town and only use the overdrive for highway driving... my off road and 2 chamber flowmasters sure sound good.. :burnout:
Autos are different since their 1st gear is nowhere near the ratio of the I4 T5. 2.4 1st first mated up to 4.1 rear = 9.84x advantage with gearing. 1st gear in most manuals is much higher and the I4's 1st is 3.97 - multiplied by a rearend ratio of 3.55, this is still much more advantage and rpm ramp up rates at 14.09 over your 9.84. You have much more time in 1st, plus autos can (the stock aod can be pretty sloppy though) handle a quick 1-2 shift much better than a person with a manual.
For a track or city driven vehicle, 4.3's would be fine with the AOD and run the quarter well behind a mild engine, with traction.
Sorry, my bad. I thought we were talking about a T5. :hick:
Peak power(or just after peak) in direct drive(4th) is where you want to cross through the traps...regardless of 1st gear. It doesn't matter if you shift to second gear 6ft out or at the 60ft mark, you're still making that shift, you're not losing any time.
I would much rather have that super short 1st gear. It's easier to drive on the street with less clutch slippage required, you can creep around parking lots at super slow speeds without clutching it every other second, and it makes it easier to get out of the hole with more consistency.
With my old standard T5(3.35 1st), I cut extremely consistent 60' times, with the T5Z(2.95 1st) it was much slower out of the hole launching the same way...I accidentally slipped the hell out of it on the last run and it was slighly quicker than my best 60' with the old standard T5.
I vote for gears!
Good luck,
Don
I thought if your running a car with boost,you would want a higher rear gear numerically lower!!! Some turbo apps i seen like 3.08-3.55 max gear ratio. Helps boost pull longer and harder instead of banging gears like a mofookie?????????
I'll say it again. For a daily driver, I personally won't go any lower than 3.55 gears with a 3.97 first gear T5. ITS PERSONAL CHOICE. If you don't mind shifting into second 15 feet out of the hole, go for it. Just seems useless to me.
Given the choice between a good quality cam that will increased my horsepower and torque across THE ENTIRE RPM BAND, or gears that will only get me off the line A LITTLE better, I'll go with the cam.
Not knowing how to install a cam is a poor excuse. LEARN. I'ts a 2.3 Ford, it ain't that hard.
How about this, which do you think will be faster? Which will accelerate the car quicker, 1/4 mile or not? The stock, or 3:73 or higher gears? The HP will remain the same, but it increases basically the leverage the engine has on the rear end. That will make it faster. Might not be much, but it would. The only real change I see to this, is if you blow the tires off with the better gear. A way under geared first ratio will feel better and let you enjoy the boost longer, but will be slower from second on, where the engine will still easily hit boost, but will be in those gear longer.