The Magical Mustang Cure

Hi everybody,

I wrote up a bit of a satiracle commentary on performance gearing choice and thought I would share it with everyone.

www.classicsandperformance.com/home.html

It's very true. Not only is 3.73 not the ideal ratio for drag racing in a stock 5.0 Mustang (about 4.00 is ideal, which makes 4.10 the most ideal non-stock gear for a stock 5.0 with the stock tire height) but a lot of people seem to be unaware that not only will they slow down by using a 3.73 gear and trapping in fourth (over running through in 3rd which 5.0 Mustangs are designed to do from the factory) but they lose a lot of traction in first gear because it puts too much torque to the stock sized rear tires. That's just drag racing, I'm not even going into gearing for road racing, circle track racing and such.

In essence, people see better times by throwing in a higher than stock gear ratio because they don't drive the car correctly to begin with and the gearing can make up for poor shifting and launching (be it due to style or RPM or both).

And these problems are possibilities in every vehicle combination out there. There is only a short range of ideal gearing for performance in every combination and application so its much easier to get it wrong than right without having the correct knowledge to make accurate choices.

It seems to me that a lot of people are willing to spend a whole lot of money to get faster when if they would just spend some time perfecting their driving technique they could see just as big a performance difference. And still have an ideally set up car if they left it alone (in the case of a stock 5.0 Mustang).

Ryan

MitchGT said:

what I think is interesting is how people can tell you what gear is in the rear, but can't tell you what the low gear ( or any other gear) ratio is in their tranny. How can you have the perfect gear for one tranny and have it be the perfect gear for a very different tranny? most people don't take the time to figure out all the ratios (including tire size).

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Well, I know I've felt what I would consider a significant change going from 2.80s to 3.00s.

It really is amazing the reputation (whether deserved or not) that 3.73 gears have gotten. And it's amazing how that (or those) reputation(s) have been propagated.

Ryan

65ShelbyClone said:

Is that possible?!

I heard the same thing when I had my '89 GT. I decided on 3.55s since it wasnt going to be a drag car. People acted like I was a retard and I wouldn't feel it much, even coming from 2.73s .

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