right now im running 3.08 gears and i was wondering what the difference would be if i went with 3.73 or 4.11 gears and which gears to run. i do mostly city driving and i dont worry too much about mpg but also about how much would they drop with the upgrade?

-thanks

 

For what size tires? That might make a slight difference you know.

 

eh yea forgot bout that. im running p225/70r14. they are almost stock sized tires

 

i would go 3.73s

 

I don't know, I had a 98 Ranger (4.0L OHV) with 31s and 3.73s and it was great. I almost think 3.73s with your small tires might be a little low with the OHV.

 

ok. i dont know anything about gears/tires/ect. any suggestions would be good.

 

my dad had a 93 4.0 5speed that i geared to 3.55 with 235/75r15's on it and it was perfect

 

4.88's









seriously though IMO 3.55 or 3.73

 

ok so between the 3.55 and 3.73 whats any big difference. ive tried to learn about gears and such but i just end up getting confused. lets just go with the 3.73. would i feel much of a difference in acceleration from my 3.08? if i understand this 3.73 would give me better accel because rpm's would be higher but it would also cut my top speed.

 

The more gear the better I say. 3.73s at least.

 

if you went up to a 3.73:1 gear ratio you would see an increase in rpm, but a decrease in fuel economy because your engine is now working harder to turn the smaller gear to maintain the same speed.

something no one mentioned is that the "3.73" refers to what is called an underdrive ratio ( a 0.90:1 or less is considered overdrive). in other words, your drive shaft turns 3.73 times for every one revolution of the wheel. to lower the mpg, you would want to probably drop the ratio to less then what you have now, something like 2.90:1 or smaller.

have you factored in the cost as well?? parts and labour??

really the only time you should be changing out the gears, is when you change other factors like tire size and trans ratios which effect your final compound ratios of your driveline/powertrain. if your truck came with 225 and 3.08:1 gears then im sure someone got paid allot of money and spent allot of time in research and development to determine an ideal size that would give the specific vehicle the right balance of torque and acceleration.

just my 2 cents.

 

Yeah, I'd go with 3.73's. These engines need all the help they can get in the power department.

 

unlike what has been previosly stated going up in gear makes your engine work LESS hard and in the city you won't notice much difference in fuel economy if you drive accordingly.. gearing up only really effects highway driving and finally yes you'll notice a considerable "power" gain

 

For you I'd go with 3.73's if you do mostly city driving. 3.55's would be better on the highway because it keeps the RPMS down. The easy way to understand gears is that the higher the number goes the easy the vehicle can spin the tires. With that same idea the higher the number goes the higher your RPMS go. Are you positive you have 3.08 gears?

 

what started this all is i pulled out all the paperwork i have on the truck. i have the original paperwork/details/ect (thank you grandparents!) and it showed the truck came with 3.08 gears. i swore i had something bigger than 3.08 but i guess not.