what to change tires or gears??

Weird. I very nearly ran out of RPM's before the traps on my notch with stock H/C/I, stock-sized tires, T-5, cat'ed X-pipe, stock 10* timing, and 4.10's - trapping 15.0 @ 98 MPH, shifting at 5600 RPM.

Then again, I granny-shift like a geezer and the worn-out mostly stock suspension can't hook off the line for diddly, so ... yeah.

Are we talking running out of gear meaning he is hitting the 6250 rev limiter, or meaning he is at 5500 and afraid to take it higher?

Our 4.10 equipped car traps 111 and still has RPM left.

Something's definitely wrong. He must just be afraid to turn it any higher?? One friend went 122mph with 4.10s and another went 119 with 3.73s, not running out of gear.

Tell him to hammer down and send it home in 4th. It'll be good.

Maybe he should try running it out before changing anything. Chances are his tach is not reading correctly. I haven't been to the track in a while, but I've run some of my best times without even looking at the tach, just going by feel. I highly doubt there are many stock tachs that do read correctly. If he's afraid of breaking anything, maybe he shouldn't be racing.

Guess that was my problem, too. I'm afraid to explore that danger zone above 5500 RPM at all. Hell, I don't even rev teh Notch above 4k but maybe once in a blue moon ... but then, with stock H/C/I, I really don't have any high-RPM power to speak of, so there's really no point I can see in shooting for 6k.

Again, I'd recommend changing tires instead of gears - way easier, probably cheaper. If you throw 'em on a spare set of rims and don't like the results (need taller/shorter tires), then you can always swap back to your stockers, sell off those tires, and throw on another pair - WAY more convenient than having to pull axles and fart around with pinion angles and stinky gear fluid and whatnot.