Thread: selecting the right gear ratio for the car

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does someone know how to pick the right gear ratio for your hot rod?

Depends on what you want the car to do. If you want to just drive around town, and getting off the line quickly is important, you would want one ratio. If you drive on the interstate, and want decent gas milage, you would want a higher (numerically lower) ratio. If you race the car occasionally, even deeper gears are needed, sometimes.

Tire size enters into the deal too. The taller the tire, the more it raises your gear ratio. Stick or auto trans is also a factor.

These are questions only you can answer.


Give us more info, and we can get you in the ball park, sort of.

Don

The wheelsize/tire height is the ultimate factor. It will change engine revs so radically you won't know what happened. Decide how you think your are going to want to drive the car 1st and work out the gear ratio relative to the desired tire height. Changing tire aspect ratio- profile height- can even keep gear ratio the same if you go larger/smaller on wheel size. And finally don't forget to have a decent speedo shop calibrate your speedometer once you're all set up. Hopefully they can regear it as needed. Cops don't buy that crap about "uh, the tall wheels and tires musta threw off my speedo."