Sxynerd

You better sure have some sticky tires and great suspension if you want to add 100hp with Nitrous while having 4.30's.

Your BIL's charger is an over weight hunk of S* with stock gears and not in anyway a good comparison between cars. 4.30's and a good tires & suspension setup even at your power level will give him hell in the 1/8th. Work with what you've got add power AFTER you've done everything else.

-So sayith the Lord.

Bman2000

then people are misunderstanding what im saying...because a turbo 5 speed is way different than a factory, or full bolt on mustang. all i was saying is full bolt ons, gears aren't worth it, and im not sure someone could show me that they where unless they put big and littles on their car and left the line with a 1.79 or less 60` which almost means you need suspension as well. thats all i was saying. Hell this may not be accurate for other years, but for 99-04.....not worth it until you can trap over 103-105

TRUEBLUE3934

I did in fact say that I had raced my car with all of those gears. I have a 5speed car.
I would take any money you wish to bet on 9 of 10 people running faster with stock gears than shorter gears, it just isn't so.

The original question was what OP should do to improve his chances of beating the Charger. He currently has a stock GT which will NOT make enough power to smoke the tires under acceleration beyond first gear, unless you try to keep the tires spinning thru first and second gears.

I was running 2.00-2.06 60' times with 4.10 gears and very old 245 Gatorback tires. Short gears does not mean that you will automatically wind up spinning the tires like crazy. You just have to learn not to over power the grip you have available. The 4.10 gears WILL help your ET a lot on the back end of the run too.

Everyone has to decide where they want to invest their cash to gain the results they want, but I would strongly encourage anyone to install shorter gears as their first mod.

Bman2000

well i didnt have so much luck, and it coulda just been how much i changed in short a short time that made my car difficult to relearn. I ran my 2.0 60` times back to back with the 3.27s and trapped top of third...even taking the possibility of spinning out with the 4.10s or 3.90s like i have now(i dont spin much in first and dont spin second just have a hard time getting that 2.0 back). that extra shift still costs time, and with a 2.0 60` on street tires the initial gain you get from gears is kinda out the window.

i mean unless i misunderstand a little, the basic idea is torque multiplication in order to get the car out of the hole and into its power range faster and keep it in the power range? But with a factory car, most of you gain would come from the launch...and if my launches are equal....i personally doubt that the gears make up for the extra shift after the fact(in a factory mustang)...but its just my opinion.

I will say though, there is a reason the seriously fast cars run through the trap tapped out in their final gear. i know quite a few 10 and 11 second drivers and cars, and what they run. No one has to agree or listen. just my point of view.

i now have a light flywheel and a 6 speed and 3.90s and the combo of added weight from the tranny and the difficulty of launching with a light flywheel has pretty much kept me from matching my best...so far im over .5 a second off from my last best and im running DR so maybe im just grumpy. Id like to see some direct comparisions tho.

Mustanger21

amen to that! Especially if you are running nitrous. Start out with the wrong bang! Just from a burp!

P51E

With a 4.30 rear end, you’ll only have about 2.5 seconds in 1st before hitting redline, and will limit top end speed in 4th and 5th. The 4.10 is plenty fast. But, 4.30 (and 4.10) works with 6 speed T56, starting in 2nd gear instead of 1st.