3.73 gears? August 26, 2010, 03:13:27 AM does it matter if its for a 2010 mustang or do i have to get one made for fox mustangs? Quote Selected
3.73 gears? Reply #1 – August 26, 2010, 08:45:23 AM As long as there for a Ford 8.8 rear, they'll work in yours. BTW, if you're going to 3.73's in your 5 speed TC, get ready to find out 1st gear is just about useless. Quote Selected
3.73 gears? Reply #2 – August 26, 2010, 10:08:50 AM yeah, first is gone quick, I have 3.73 gears, with the 87 TC "155" case gear box (3.97 first gear) and a 25.6 tall tiremy 3.73 came from a ranger rear end...you will be grabbing 2nd when the nose is in mid lift!well I also went with an Alum drive shaft (about 8lbs lighter than the stock steel, and I machined about 4lbs off the flywheel too) Quote Selected
3.73 gears? Reply #3 – August 26, 2010, 12:04:30 PM If you're looking for bang-for-the-buck value, forget the rear gears and just install the Boport cam and valvetrain you've got. Quote Selected
3.73 gears? Reply #4 – August 26, 2010, 01:38:33 PM alright thank you. my friend has 3.73 in his turbocoupe and i like it. i dog out going into 3rd.the boport cam and valvetrain is too pricey for me right now too have them installed and i dont have the experience to do that myself yet. im going to buy a stage 3 head and cam hopefully in the winter and do a head swap which ive done before so i have the confidence to do it. the bo 1.9 and valve train is forsale. Quote Selected
3.73 gears? Reply #5 – August 26, 2010, 03:00:13 PM Sr... I doubt you will notice much of a differance, you already have 3.55 gears, so 3.73 isnt that much of a diff.get a alum drivesfat from a 96 4door explorer, it is 51' long and have it cut down to 48 inches.also get a lighter flywheel...with what you loose off rotating mass will make the car feel that much fasterbut if you have the gears just laying around (like I did) go ahead and pop them in Quote Selected
3.73 gears? Reply #6 – August 26, 2010, 03:36:33 PM does a lightweight fly wheel and alum. drive shaft make a noticable different? Quote Selected
3.73 gears? Reply #7 – August 26, 2010, 03:45:56 PM come drive my 85 TC and tell me!huge, the accel is much crisper, and the decell drops quicker Quote Selected
3.73 gears? Reply #8 – August 26, 2010, 06:04:09 PM I have to say,when I installed my aluminum driveshaft,I could feel a noticeable difference. No,it didn't feel like more power to me,but,a smoother feel. Quote Selected
3.73 gears? Reply #9 – August 26, 2010, 06:58:19 PM Am I the only one that doesn't get going up in gear when it renders the first gear useless? Why not use a lower rearend gear so that you can make use of the mechanical advantage that 1st is there to give you? Let me find my Excel document and it'll make sense what I'm trying to describe with optimal gearing ratios at different speeds. Or course, with such a steep 1st and fixed, 1st is also useless for pretty much everything so even with the high advantage of such gearing, it can't be used with most tires if you've got the torque and the performance boost is only there for the first few mph.You will be let down by the cost is increasing your gearing by 5%, only being able to make use of like 2-3% of that when there is a larger fractional delay since the speed of the rpm's increasing will be even quicker while there is a limit in how fast a human can throw the transmission into second. That is, if you have the torque to back it up and you already should. Such gearing would make more sense on a standard I4. Quote Selected
3.73 gears? Reply #10 – August 26, 2010, 07:36:12 PM I have 3.55's in the Sport.I also have a 3.73 diff in the garage,but I figure the 3.55's are plenty for the daily driving I do. Quote Selected
3.73 gears? Reply #11 – August 26, 2010, 07:42:53 PM I have 2:73 gears in my automatic equipped car, I'm thinking about 3:45s , of course I'm not switching to an 8.8 Quote Selected
3.73 gears? Reply #12 – August 26, 2010, 09:16:28 PM "Am I the only one that doesn't get going up in gear when it renders the first gear useless?"Uhmm, no, see my first reply.My oldest son runs 3.73's in his 2.3T stang with the 3.97 first geat T5, and he's pulling second halfway across an intersection. Quote Selected
3.73 gears? Reply #13 – August 26, 2010, 10:46:49 PM Quote from: jangus;333661"Am I the only one that doesn't get going up in gear when it renders the first gear useless?"Uhmm, no, see my first reply.My oldest son runs 3.73's in his 2.3T stang with the 3.97 first geat T5, and he's pulling second halfway across an intersection.*edit* Yeah, I understand your comment. Still, people everywhere are always wanting more gear when you really don't need more if you're already making your stronger transmission gears useless. At automatic is completely different though - you can feed them quite a bit and they'll keep making you faster while they utilize each gear to its fullest. *edit*3.55's and 3.73's (and even 4.10's) work well in v8 transmissions, and especially in automatics, because the 1st gear is much higher. AOD's have a 2.4 1st and 4r70w's have a 2.84 - the low gears here help utilize low gears in the rearend. If you're pushing 4x gear multiplication in 1st (3.97 with the 4 cylinder T5's), there is very little that can be gained other than headaches. If you have to basically shift right into 2nd, imaging the above graph with 1st gear flat-lined to the same gearing multiplication as 2nd - it will make you slower. This is what I'm trying to get at.The Saturn I used to have had a 1st gear of 3.25 and a final drive of 4.063. 13.2x gear multiplication on a lowly 120hp motor was already borderline usable (and quite touchy at that) - dealing with a car with more gearing in 1st with double the torque over a Saturn would tell me that there is absolutely NO reason to add more gearing anywhere. If anything, the cars could use less gearing. At the track, the 3.55's for the T5 are plenty and on the street, unless you're trying to launch hard, you can easily get the boost going with such a steep 1st and less gearing in the rearend.*edit 2*I had severe traction issues with stock TC 225 tires when my auto transmission would shift into 2nd (1.55) with 3.55 rearend gearing (5.5x total) with the transmission's hard shifts, on completely dry pavement with semi-performance street tires. While it moved well in the seat-of-pants feel in 2nd and 3rd, I ended up moving down to 3.08's which are right in the middle of 2.73's and 3.55's in terms of gearing gains and lost no time to 70mph since I wasn't having to let off the gas for the 1-2 shift. It still breaks them loose if I'm on anything but perfect pavement but safety was a major concern and I didn't want to go with wider tires. It gets quite bad when every time you go into 2nd, the car fishtails and you have to let off the gas. It's easy to go overboard for a specific setup. People should keep such things in mind also - it's best to keep the power where it's usable than to just spin the tires. 1st gear in most vehicles can already get them spinning so why waste all that power that 1st is there to give you? Quote Selected
3.73 gears? Reply #14 – August 26, 2010, 10:55:09 PM For the track, you want to be at the top of forth when you cross the line, regardless of tranny. That way you are getting all of the power to the ground that you have gearing for.... I should have said 1:1, not forth. Quote Selected