With the Kooks on my 05, I saved 20 lbs... Ditching the cats has to be another 5-10lbs...

I have American racing headers without cats in my garage for my 08... I'll give you a report on the exact savings. I'm scheduled to have them put on 08Jul...

 

Thanks Pat!

I appreciate the time. Don't sweat it thoguh, if it becomes to involved.

 

I would say headers. Gears effect gas milage, and in general cause more wear on the drivetrain...headers don't.

 

Gears lessen drive line wear on all parts except the half shafts because they reduce inertia. The TQ multiplication which is why 0-60 is so much faster with gears is hard on 1/2 shafts.

DennisNJ50 runs 125 traps speeds with just over 400rwhp. Going from 2.73's to 3.73's on an auto is a full second off the 1/4 mile time.

Gas mileage and wear arent speed performance as the OP asked about.

 

Lou, if steeper gears made you faster, everyone would start in second gear. Get the gears AND the headers. I'll put them both on for you.

 

lllllll

 

Dennis has an awesome setup. His car is a beast.... If you want to go fast, just copy his formula....

On an automatic, gears and a converter are a must.

 

with both, gear multiplication after the gears themselves, meaning half shafts. Which is why GM can get away with such a small drive shaft compared to a front mount transmission car. The gear multiplication is after it with a rear mount trans.

 

Arguing about which makes a car faster is like asking if red is better than blue. Its just another thread for certain experts to have arguments about their preferences. You need both mods for a fast car. :o

 

I agree! I have both but did headers first. In all honesty you can't go wrong with either as a 1st mod.

 

A stock LS3-powered C6 auto should run the 1/4 in the low 12s at 117mph in reasonable conditions. Are you saying that with no other changes except going to a 3.73 rear, that same car would then run low 11s?

Pat

 

What everyone seems to neglect reporting when you see those "dropped 1sec after gears" reports, is that it's also after a tune, converter, and usually run with drag radials or similar sticky tire.

I went from 2.73 to 3.73 gear only (no converter/tire/cam, etc) on my TransAm (tuned by Doug@ECS ) and gained no where near 1 sec. Just not going to happen.

Go to the sticky's on LS1tech, and there's a great write-up on gears. The concensus is .1-.3sec quicker, mostly due to launch.

I'll still say get the gears for SOTP fun, headers if you want consistant 1/4 improvements.

 

Sounds like that makes alot of sense. Certainly takes all of the wondering out of it.

 

just my observation...gears are not automatically a win against a car w/ more power, you got to look at the gears in the tranny...going to 4.10 gears I netted ~.3 in the 1/4 and zero mph, 11.89@118.7 vs 11.62@118.3, but if you look closely ~.1 was gained in 60'(1.74 vs 1.63), another .1 by the 330'(4.9 vs 4.7) impressive since I'm in 3rd by this point and have made 2 shifts...and the other .1 from 330'-660'(7.7@92 vs 7.4@96)prolly from the lack of shift, b/c 3rd w/4.10 isn't as good overall gearing as 2nd w/ 3.42...from 1/8 mile on no gains, but interestingly though the mph is higher before the 1/8...it took the same 4.2 sec, only a 22mph increase post gears vs 26mph pre gears...so from a roll at 95mph in 4th w/ 4.10 vs 3rd w/ 3.42 the 3.42 have the slight advantage of better overall gearing...you have to look at the big picture and see that I used to be able to run thru the traps at the top of 3rd, just gettin into 3rd at the 1/8 as 2nd used to run out @~85mph...now 3rd runs to the end of the 1/8, the gain was there cause it maximized gearing w/ no xtra shifts, like a z51 car would see in the...I picked up an xtra shift, but still gained .3...now for some reason, that I still don't fully understand, if you 60' better then your mph usually doesn't increase...f-bodygears.com is a great website...another note is that I have not been able to improve my ET on street tires since the gears as I can now scratch 4th at 95mph, so my conclusion is it's gonna depend on the actual speed of the race and the available traction

 

Gears.....and here's why:At my local 1/8 mile track I run consistent
7.40's @99.xxMPH.......there are some guys with considerably less power than me running in the 6's @90.XX MPH...all because of gears.

Headers will make you faster.......but gears will make you quicker

 

 

ok if 2 stock c6s were racing, one had headers the other gears, i would bet on the gear car everytime, ill bet a million dollars on it.

this is what would happen, right from the get go 0-60 the gear car will be 1 full car lengths ahead, the header car will never have a chance to catch up. that said you need the headers too for the sound.

 

ive heard that the c6 responds to these mods even better than the older ls cars

 

 

And I've heard that I'm going to marry a supermodel.

I'd wager the same chance of getting 1 full sec on gears only too.