gears will make your shifting in the manual annoying. i had 390's and wished i had not done them. waste of money. and no, it didnt snap my neck back like everyone said. percieved performance was minimal. only thing i noticed was i was shifting more and hwy crusing RPM's were uncomfortably high

 

Best mod ever. I've invested at least $15k in performance improvements and the 4.10's were the greatest power improvement other than tuning for the money. The SOP feel will make your SOP pucker.

 

gears greatest advantage will be the ability to 60ft the car much harder. But that takes sticky tires and prepped surface to maximize the effect. on the street, you will notice a difference, but you also run the risk of simply spinning much more than before the swap. Gearing advantage will taper off once a car gets rolling and increasing speed. So, unless you have an ultra peaky powerband motor (like a centrifugal s/c motor), I don't see gears adding much on a roll race.

 

Hey fella...forgive me.... But, if you installed 3.90's.....and didn't notice a significant power increase, I would look elsewhere for the blame....

Strange as it sounds, maybe something in the fuel or your altitude....possibly the tune.....was not right.....

It's really hard not to notice the incredible change that everyone else raves about.....

Also, while you might shift slightly more often...it's hardly a bother.....

One thing though.....I NEVER put 3.90's in a stick...ONLY 4.10's as the 3.90's just dosen't do it for most people.....

That's strange....
Chuck CoW

 

That's my thinking as well. Not to minimize the advantage of quicker 60 ft times, but I just don't see how they help from on a roll.

Anyone with gears disagree?

 

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. I had 4.10's in my M6 SS a few years ago, and replaced them w/ 3.73's. I thought the 4.10's were too squirrelly for the street. In retrospect, even though I liked the 3.73's,3.90's might have been just right.

In my opinion, gears don't really add any power. They do increase the torque multiplication, so the engine revs more quickly, and usually (but not always) accelerates to a higher speed more quickly also. Launches are usually much better, and wheelspin can be more easily controlled.

 

The 4.10 gearing was the last of the mods I did and I wish I had done them first. The car is a night and day difference, period. I would do it again and again and again, etc. They have made me better appreciate all the other things that has been doen to the car.

 

Are there any gears out for the A6? All of the discussion seems to only apply to sticks.

 

i will try to explain myself better about the gears. there was nothing wrong with my car before the gears. it was perfectly tuned @ 21st Century and my only mods were long tubes and a filter and it ran great.

im not a drag racer, i simply wanted better enjoyment for the street. the first few days it was kind of cool because i was getting used to the different gears and their respective RPM ranges.

the problem is, on the street, one is not always looking to performance drive and thats when the gears become annoying. when pulling away from a stop, i found myself skipping 2nd gear 95% of the time and going straight to 3rd from 1st.

cruising on the hwy, 5th was usless because it was too low a gear to be in and even 6th @ 80mph was reving higher than i wanted.

i know for a fact that doing 410's would have produced even more unpleasant results.

as stated before, once you get going, gears loose their usefulness, because you can then manipulate RPM be simply dropping down a gear.

what i found is that i really wanted to alter the individual gear ratios or spacing to suit my tastes, not just shortening all of them using gears. i talked to Rodney at RPM and was told that replacing gears in the tranny could be done but was not going to be cheap.

its a worth while mod for the drag racers but if you're just looking for street performance, there are better places to put your money

these are my opinions and experiences and YMMV

 

I was wondering the same about my A6. I have the 2:56 gears, but the car sure snaps up and goes! I guess the gearing of the A6 makes it seem i have 3:90's or so.

Chas

 

Everyone knows that a real vette is a stick....

 

Does the predator tuner have the ability to correct the speedo to the new gears??