Rear end gears?
- Thread starter Grandprixpaul
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I agree with 83MONTESS, i just put a GN rearend in my GP with 3.42's along with my TH400 and i am going to have to swap the gears down to 3.08's because my motor is taching out too much on the highway. With the torque of my 455 i don't need that steep of gear, plus i only have a 3 speed transmission so it feels like i am driving around stuck in second gear all the time! 3.41's are really too much for my motor and transmission. The torque makes up for the gears.
Lol the ricers never got the memo. But the first thing you will hear from people is to go with 3.73s and thats what I thought before too, but you really dont have to jump to that if your making good torque as the torque will do its job. I messed up by throwing in 3.73s behind my 400RegalBegal said:-83MONTESS- said:
DAMN STRAIGHT!
I also ended up putting 3.08 gears in my 8.5 rear. With 3.42 gears, the engine was buzzing away at a higher rpm than I was comfortable with on the interstate. Especially running a non-overdrive trans. However, I still have the 3.42 gears which will eventually go back once I put a 200-4R in there.
3.08's would be a compromise with a daily driver, if its a sunny day cruiser 3.23-3.42's max would be good depending how the motor was built i.e. cam, compression, intake/carb etc. i've never owned anything that had better than 2.73's... i love the idea of cruising the highway with out being tached out. also if you have a th350 you have a decent first gear so that would definetly help with launching. for instants: my truck (86 K5) has 2.73's with a 32" tire and a sm465 4 speed. the first gear (non synchronized low) is 6.55 and second is 3.58 so pulling from a dead stop with either of those gears helps off set the crappy rear gears made worse by tall tires (27.7" stock). trans gearing is just as important as rear gearing, everyone tells me to swap my trucks gears for AT LEAST 3.73's, i tell them when the 400 gets put in i wont need better gears because of the low rpm torque would be able to pull a house off its footing and and still cruise comfortably at 65+mph
Grandprixpaul said:
With what you are describing as a weekend warrior with occassional street/strip duty..... I'd go with something like a 3.55 or a 3.73.
I know the purist and the drivers are saying 3.08's and such, but I can just about promise ya that you won't be happy with anything less than a 3.55
I would have to agree and say somewhere in the low 3's with the gears. I have stock 3.73's in my 442 with OD and it works out well, but without OD I would never have 3.73's in the back. I was thinking about swapping to a th350 for a while, so I drove the car around without using OD and even on the street at 55 she was screaming pretty good.
I canned the idea of the th350 and just decided to do a few things to the 200-4r to make it a little better because I also like being able to have my cake and eat it too... haha.
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