i'm looking at re-gearing my transmission and i was wondering what the concensus was on it?

as of right now i have a super long gearset with an even longer final drive

1-2-3-4-5-FD


3.310 1.810 1.232 0.900 0.710
4.062
and i'm looking to replace 1-4 with these

3.307 1.950 1.360 1.034
and then change i have the option of changing out the final drive to either 4.266 (stock upgrade) or an aftermarket 4.64 or 5.15

cruising is not an issue, but just for the course, auto-x and track, what would be better, obviously shorter gears=more shifting, but i'll have better acceleration but won't be able to hold gears nearly as long. i'm sure there is a tradeoff somewhere that is optimal, most people do the 4.64 for the street because they don't like cruising at 80 around 5K RPMs. but that isn't an issue, so in terms of just racing, what would be best?

i can crunch the numbers and give you the MPH for each gear if it'd help

 

For most cars, for autocross, your ideal is to reach about 65 mph in 2nd gear.

The exception might be if you had a low-power or low-revving engine, then you might trade that extra shift for shorter gears.

But... if you don't have the experience and skill as a driver, it's not going to matter a bit how the car is geared. Don't get too bogged down in the details of setup, get out there and drive!

 

its the S model economy transmission, and its seriosuly geared stupidly long, so i'm going to shorten up the gears and put in an LSD and i'd prefer to crack the tranny open only once and do it all at the same time, i'll look into more of the 65MPH 2nd gear deal

hrmm...with the stock upgrade of the 2nd gear and final drive my theoretical 2nd gear speed at 8K RPM is 68

and what about on the road course?

and also, the way my transmission is geared, the stock 1-2 shift drops me out of my powerband, would i benefit more from getting back into that power band quicker? or being able to hold the gear longer?

 

Road course is track Dependant, if your in a torque trough coming out of a corner your gonna loose a second per lap. I have this problem at sebring, turn 7 3rd gear is too high and 2nd is too low. now I've solved this problem with a slightly smaller diameter tire... I can carry 3rd through the corner and be on the power coming out. but ALSO with the larger tire being a R-compound, I can carry that few MPH diffrence if I hit the corner perfectly.

so there is no honest answer to your question.

 

Jeff's right, every turn on every race track is going to be different. Unless you have a race car that you can swap gearsets out in for every track, you just need to learn to be flexible with whatever you have.

Autocross courses you can generally count on to rarely get beyond about 60 mph. So, having a 2nd gear that will get you to 65 will eliminate the need to shift to 3rd most of the time.

 

hrmm

thanks guys, definately things i had not thought about

 

Shifting on an autocross course is not as bad as I thought it would be. I had to go to third 2 different times last weekend at z-hills.

I think I would rather have to go to third more often on the faster stuff, than to bog or have to shift to first on the tighter stuff.

Always in the power band without using first gear = fun.

 

You dont need to re-gear the syncros; Just change the FD to something a little taller. I guess in your case the 4.6x

My car has a 4.08 stock and I am currently running a 4.36 (both are VLSD) and it made a world of difference. I sit 400 rpm higher at any given speed than the stock gear. It shifted the rpms right where I want them for my car so I dont have to down shift nearly as often when going through corners. My car also only runs to about 6800revs but I usually shift at 6400.

But I can also change out F/D's in under 45 minutes and have 3 to choose from - 3.90, 4.08, and a 4.36.

 

yeah, i have to crack my transmission open anyways, and with the gears i have now and the new gears, they'll put my shifts at different points, which is something the final drive can't do

and since i'm going to have the tranny open, and i think my 2nd gear is about done, i want to do everything at the same time

 

The m2b4's 2nd gear tops at about 63mph on our preludes. When Ii went to brooksville to autocross Ii only used 3rd gear for a few seconds. I ended the run topping out 2nd.

Its really hard trying to match your gearing/setup to whatever track your on, so like loren said, a good avg. is about 65 mph in 2nd gear.

whats your current MPH per gear?