can someone help explain what the gears mean? ex. when someone says the have 4.11 gears what does it mean? what is better higher or lower? please help me out with this
A 'lower gear' actually has a higher number.
Lower gears give more leverage and get your RPMs up quick.
A lower gear is always good for accelleration and response. It will make you faster, assuming traction.
The drawbacks are higher RPM highway operation and reduced fuel economy.
Higher gears, also called highway gears by some, are good for high speed cruising and mileage. The engine RPMs come up slowly and therefore throttle response and accelleration are 'dampend'.
Most classic Fords came with highway gears ranging from 2.70ish to 3.00.
Middle of the road gears are 3.25 to around 3.50
Anything numerically higher are good 'stump pulling' low gears.
Ford went as low as 4.30 gears in a select few cars. Anything beyond that and you have gone too low unless your car is single purpose and you have put alot of thought into your gearing.
The 4.11 is a very good gear IMO, but as an example of going overboard on low gearing... I have put 4.11s in a car that was almost pure stock. The thought was making the car faster with gears and not too many engine mods. It didn't work... An engine that can't use fast revs or make power at higher RPMs cannot efficiently use low gears. Therefore, the car drove like a dumptruck rather than faster. It couldn't make power at any speed because the gears ran the revs up too fast.
I hope this helps.
Dave
A 'lower gear' actually has a higher number.
Lower gears give more leverage and get your RPMs up quick.
A lower gear is always good for accelleration and response. It will make you faster, assuming traction.
The drawbacks are higher RPM highway operation and reduced fuel economy.
Higher gears, also called highway gears by some, are good for high speed cruising and mileage. The engine RPMs come up slowly and therefore throttle response and accelleration are 'dampend'.
Most classic Fords came with highway gears ranging from 2.70ish to 3.00.
Middle of the road gears are 3.25 to around 3.50
Anything numerically higher are good 'stump pulling' low gears.
Ford went as low as 4.30 gears in a select few cars. Anything beyond that and you have gone too low unless your car is single purpose and you have put alot of thought into your gearing.
The 4.11 is a very good gear IMO, but as an example of going overboard on low gearing... I have put 4.11s in a car that was almost pure stock. The thought was making the car faster with gears and not too many engine mods. It didn't work... An engine that can't use fast revs or make power at higher RPMs cannot efficiently use low gears. Therefore, the car drove like a dumptruck rather than faster. It couldn't make power at any speed because the gears ran the revs up too fast.
I hope this helps.
Dave