Oops..yes I loked at the 17's. I am sure its worth it especially third car. .never ends does it..$$ How are your sidewalls for handling CHris? Any good?
i'll have to look again ... it has been a while since i saw it ... the car is at the shop right now ... again. i think they are 275/40/18, so the sidewall is 110mm.
it has been away from the house now for over a month, between being at the shop for the AOD tranny conversion, to sitting in my parking lot at work while i was fabbing up the kickdown, to the exhaust place for the accufabs, and now at the tranny place for adjustment and the water pump gasket
i was actually planning on getting 17" rims and 315 wide tires with as much sidewall as possible for traction, but the tire guy talked me into these. at least i ended up saving money this way.
I was over on the vette forums and they chose the toyo proxys over them bc they had a 200 wear rating and were as good traction. I dunno if that is true though. When I said sidewall, I meant handling not looks.
Which gear will have the faster 0-60? Are the 3.73's too much gear for my engine on street? Below is another assssment of the useable bandwidth of MPH in each gear. Obviously there is a lot of usable stretch with 2.73's lol but that is stretched too thin. 4.30's would be too close..:
Total MPH in each gear:
gear 1 2 3 4 5
3.27 48-23-36-33-40
3.55 44-21-34-31-50
3.73 42-20-31-31-56
4.30 36-18-27-25-49
just my opinion my DD has stock engine and trans and somebody before me put 4:10 gears in it and like another post said 1st is a joke! mine 75mph=3500rpm but it hooks like nothing else I'm looking for 3:73's next. strip only 4:10 or 4:30 would be fine
frankly keith, i think you are over-analyzing this whole thing.
i have tried to think about it this way ... how do i use the car?
A: mostly (1) city, (2) neighborhood, or (3) highway driving?
B: what rpm do i want be turning while cruising on the highway?
C: what gear do i want to be in when going through the neighborhood?
if (B) is the main thing, then look at the tables and find the rpm that matches the speed you want to cruise at. that will tell you the gear
i spend much more time in (1) and (2), so C was more important than B (this was when i had a manual)
for me, when i had the manual, not shifting into 3rd in the neighborhoods had elevated importance simply because i spend alot of my driving time tooling through neighborhoods on my way to the places i go alot ... the store, dropping off or picking up the kids, ... if i want to enjoy the car, then that is a big part of the time i want to be painless. what i found was that with 3.73s, the speeds of normal neighborhood driving always seemed fluctuate between being too high for 2nd and too low for 3rd, so i ended up going back and forth between those 2 alot. i found it annoying.
i also tend to gravitate to about 70mph on the highway, which with 3.27 gears happens to be very close to 2000 rpm, which also happens to be my ideal highway cruising rpm.
frankly keith, i think you are over-analyzing this whole thing.
i have tried to think about it this way ... how do i use the car?
A: mostly (1) city, (2) neighborhood, or (3) highway driving?
B: what rpm do i want be turning while cruising on the highway?
C: what gear do i want to be in when going through the neighborhood?
if (B) is the main thing, then look at the tables and find the rpm that matches the speed you want to cruise at. that will tell you the gear
i spend much more time in (1) and (2), so C was more important than B (this was when i had a manual)
for me, when i had the manual, not shifting into 3rd in the neighborhoods had elevated importance simply because i spend alot of my driving time tooling through neighborhoods on my way to the places i go alot ... the store, dropping off or picking up the kids, ... if i want to enjoy the car, then that is a big part of the time i want to be painless. what i found was that with 3.73s, the speeds of normal neighborhood driving always seemed fluctuate between being too high for 2nd and too low for 3rd, so i ended up going back and forth between those 2 alot. i found it annoying.
i also tend to gravitate to about 70mph on the highway, which with 3.27 gears happens to be very close to 2000 rpm, which also happens to be my ideal highway cruising rpm.
Makes alot of sense Chris. I am going more toward the 3.55. 3.27 are a bit to little and 3.73 are a bit too much and I think 3.55 will be juuuust right for me. I am considering "b" and 1st gear on this one.