Sancho805

thanks....and yeah, i do drive enough highway for it to be a concern. it seems that 3.73's are the halfway point between stock and 4.10's which i'm pretty comfortable with. where did you purchase your gears by the way?

Trmachuno

I got my gears from rpmoutlet.com for $150. Best price u'll find on new gears. Some people have problems with them, but I made a few orders through them and always got my orders in 3-4 business days. Your welcome, and I suggest staying away from the 4.10's then.

Sancho805

yeah, i bought my tuner and intake from them with no problems whatsoever. plan on getting a C&L through them also. i wonder what specific issues the others have had.

Trmachuno

Shipping and contact trouble I think.

davesyo

Just wanted to make an opinion on gears .We already have a great 1st gear ratio of 3.35 .Combine that with the 3.31 axle ratio which makes an overall effective 1st gear launch of 11.08 . Personally I would do a lot of other mods before I would even think of changing gears because stock the gearing is already there .I also would not want to lose any gas mileage at all. Maybe if i wanted an all out racer then i would consider it. But this is just me .

Trmachuno

Not sure why u think gears should be a later mod? Other than F/I, the 2 best bang for buck mods r gears and a tuner/cai. Other than that, all ur other bolt-ons show about 1/2 or less the gains of a gears change. Gears don't make u lose any city gas milage and 3.73's have been proven to show little or no loss in mpg. 4.10's show a little loss in mpg(1-2mpg) if ur highway driving is above 60mph. Not many of us that mod r cars r all out racers I think. I no this is my daily driver and all the mods I've done don't really affect drivability or reliability for me. Full bolt-on cars r still pretty much very reliable as long as u follow the general equation of air going in=air going out or a little more air going out won't hurt. Like if u do a cai u should compliment it with a hi-flow muffler or a ram air or supercharger u should get a dual exhaust and probably headers too. Tuner's just make ur car run more efficiently if u run the right octane for the tunes and don't change all the stock settings. An aluminum DS actually would increase the life ofur drivetrain due to it having less stress(moving less weight) and any other aluminum drivetrain parts.All suspension parts only make ur car hook better(aid traction) or help ur turning abilities. So most bolt-ons don't really affect the life ofur car. F/I and bad driving(speeding all the time)is another story.Hope this helps people!

JimC

I have 3.73's on my automatic. And I've heard both arguments - the 3.73 for automatic and 4.10 for stick and then the next person says 4.10's for automatic and 3.73 for stick. I do a lot of highway driving and the 3.73's are a good fit, the 4.10's would not be good in my opinion, can't imagine them in a daily driver- the thing I found was that I had to change my exhaust system because it put my Flowmaster AT into a range that I couldn't talk with anyone in the car and had to turn the radio way up to hear it. The local performance shop - Alternative Auto - did the install and Lidio recommended no more than 3.73, especially if you think you may ever go FI. I have the Richmond's and have some whine at 40 mph and then again between 60 and 65 mph; I was told that is fairly typical of the Richmonds and that while they are a great product, they have the tendency to whine. I'm going to have a ring and pinion shop take another look to see if the whine can be reduced.

Sancho805

your opinion is well respected but the stock gearing is set up for economical reasons, not performance. Why would Ford racing even offer performance gears if that wasn't the case? I understand some mods don't improve much anything but they do make your ride different or custom, which is why they continue to sell and profit. Gears on the other hand, based off forum members, are a REAL performance mod. i'd like to hear what others with gears think about this.

Trmachuno

I actually asked my mechanic why some gears whine. He explained it to me but I forgot it a little. All I no is they are better than non whining gears for some reason. Gears that wine were built for racing and race cars. They are stronger than non-whining gears. And when put on high hp cars, u hear no whine, all u hear is the loud *** engine or loud assexhaust.

davesyo

I guess maybe I'm trying to compare trans gear ratios of today vs the older cars of the 60s and 70s , Where the average 1st gear in a muscle car was about 2.50 so with that you had to run about 4.56 gears to even get the same effective 1st gear launch that we now have in the mustang .Back then 4.56s was a lot of gearing for the street and there was no overdrives back then. So now I'm thinking damn we have a great 1st gear and an overdrive for good mileage .But of course I'm definitely not arguing the fact that 3.73s and 410s will make a nice difference in performance no doubt.