New member need some help

go 3.55 if you want fuel economy

welcome to the boards, if its 90 miles away i would get 3.08's or 3.27's

i would not bother with anything lower than 3.55's if you need/want to be lower.

i would be measuring the tire height and using a calc to see what RPM's you will turn with the gears you choose. if you need economy and to not wind the motor out for driving to school (you dont say if you are gonna commute daily or just come home every so often), i would leave it as is. the stock gearing (2.73, 3.08 optional) is nice for the highway.

also, you mention racing - how important is that. you need to consider your shift points. some with lower gears like it cuz they break the 1320 in the top of third - were they running a higher gear, they would slip more off the line and need to shift one more time.

just stuff to think about. good luck.

My 3.73's get decent gas mileage, (better than my dad's 2.5 jeep wrangler), and they up the performance quite a bit.

Adam, you will get many opinions on this topic - i bet the reason not many responses have been posted to your thread is because this issue (gears) is slaughtered on a daily basis.

i will say that i dont know that i would be racing my only car - one that needs to commute me 90 miles somewhat frequently.

that said, the shift points: i have a mildly modded stang, and have to fly through gears anyhow - were i to have gears, i would be shifting non-stop. some guys love this - it is not my cup o' tea.

when dragging, if you are keeping stock-ish wheels and suspension (i assume you want to run it in the quarter - unless i missed it, you did not say what kind of racing you wish to do), you will have traction issues as it is. stick gears in there and you will spin more.

then when you are near the end of the track: guys with stockish cars and stockish gears (3.5:1 and under) seem to often be able to hold 3rd as they finish.
were they to have a steeper gear, they would possibly spin more and have to shift once more during the run.

do note that im making huge generalities, but the point was (as i said in the first post) that you might want to do some homework before deciding. if i had a 300 dollar car, i might be taking it real easy on it, myself.
Michael Yount (aka Guru) has posted a link to a site with some calculators (i know there are many sites with this stuff, but i liked his). if you search for posts by him on gear threads, you should get an idea of what you might want to do (or find a bud with a similar set up and get his input).

good luck.

I don't know about the milage thing, as I seem to have different luck than most in here with just about everything; but my GT gets 15-20 around town depending on what mood I'm in, and over 20mpg on the highway with 3.73's (heavy bolt ons, 237,000 mile engine). I would recommend 3.55's for you, only because they seem to be the most popular all around gear for folks who aren't too focused on any one particular thing (i.e. drag racing, daily driving, etc) and they are also popular with the big tuners (Saleen, SVT) but I'm happy with what I have. I drive it back and forth to the inlaws 4 hours away on a regular basis with no trouble, as well as an hour commute daily. On a sidenote, an engine runs best from 2500-3500 rpms as a rule. My 3.73's have me spinning right around 3000 R's at 80mph. Any faster or slower and the gas milage drops dramatically, and I've made more than enough road trips to test this extensively with the cruise on. Just my $.02