Paper Lawyer

Comparison video here

Last night I did some searching regarding changing the final drive ratio and I read a variety of conflicting opinions as to whether it would make the S2000 a quicker car in rea life scenarios (even the word "quicker" was differentiated from "faster" by some people!)

One very useful tool I found last night was The Reverend's Gear Calculator which shows you how top speed in each gear is affected by changing the final drive (and plots a nice graph to show you ).

Using my MY02 car with 245/40/17 rear wheels as an example (MY04+ owners please note - your gearing is different), this is the difference between the standard final drive (4.1) as against the Richmond 4.57 final drive offered by Rick's (I have rounded the figures to make it eaiser to make rough comparisons).

Gear..........4.1 top speed ..............4.57 top speed

1....................43 mph.......................38 mph
2...................66 mph........................59 mph
3...................91 mph........................81 mph
4..................116 mph.....................104 mph
5..................138 mph.....................124 mph
6..................165 mph (theoretical)...148 mph

The one figure which disconcerted me was the top speed in 3rd gear with the 4.57 - a 10 mph drop on a favourite gear seems quite important. However, I considered some scenarios to see whether I thought the car would be quicker with the 4.57 final drive.

Example 1: The meaningless magazine stats

I'm starting perhaps with the most meaningless stats for any car but its what people will usually read when assessing a car.

0-60mph - It is straightforward to get to 60 in a standard S as 2nd gear is easily tall enough. However, the intial pull in 1st gear before vtec clealry hampers the 0-60 time. With the 4.57 final drive better use of the engine torque is used and the only limiting factor is the theoreticall max speed in 2nd gear - is 3rd gear needed simply to post a 0-60 time? I think perhaps not because provided you don't hit the rev limiter before going for third gear, the momentum of the car as it accelerates to 59 mph is probably going to push it over 60 befure you re-engage the clutch with third gear.

In this scenario usually I would go for 3rd gear, dropping me into approx 4700 revs, way off VTEC

Dropping it into 3rd with the 4.57 final drive gives approx 5600 revs, almost in VTEC

Example 2: accelerating from a 30 limit into a 60 mph country road

Usually you would hold second gear as the "normal speed resitrctions apply" sign looms. With the standard car you would be sitting at 4050 revs, not great With the 4.57 final drive you will be at a slightly higher 4525 revs, better but not great.

Paper Lawyer

Example 3: Overtaking from 50 on a country road

With the standard final drive you would drop it into 3rd gear, i.e. 4900 revs, more than a 1000 revs off vtec.

With the 4.57 final drive you would drop into 3rd at 5500 revs, halving the rev distance from vtec

Example 4: Overtaking from 70mph on a motorway

This final scenario is immediately ringing alarm bells due to the resitrcted top speed in 3rd gear with the 4.57 final drive.

With the standard drive you would drop it into 3rd (6,850 revs) if really wanting to accelerate past (I personally find the drop from 6th to 3rd a bit of an attention seeker and so often I use the less effective fourth gear instead).

With the 4.57 final drive I would drop the car into fourth rather than third becuase the revs would be (70/104) * 8900 = 6000 !!

One further consideration with the 4.57 final drive though is that cruising at 85 on the motorway you will be doing 5100 revs rather than 4600 revs, a discernable high pitched noise.

I've not tried to work out examples which flatter the 4.57 final drive but, on day-top-day performance grounds alone, the 4.57 sound a good bet!

Any comments? (including any fundamental mathematical assumptions/oversights!)

Saxo Boy

Having seen the yank video of the difference the gearing can make I'd not hesitate to change if someone could assure me my box wouldn't whine to buggery. The whine is the big limiting factor and even the american specialists can't seem to assure it won't be the case so who in old blighty would do the work and ensure a smooth noise free box

I personally think the gearing on the 4.57 is as the S2000 should have been as I find the gearing on the S as standard to be too long. The cars character is of a revvy sprinter which is quick to react and snappy yet honda fitted fairly lenghy gearing to it! 0-60 figures are meaningless even for pub talk these days with 0-100, 30-70 through the gears and 60-100 being more critical and in these incriments the 4.57 would waste stock. The lower ratio's would hopefully give 1st and 2nd the pull that they are sadly lacking helping the s2000 to match the likes of elises and classic shape scoobys which both pull on the s2000 over that range. However, the gears that interest me the most would be 3rd and 4th - I expect the car would be an absolute fly machine in those ranges with the new gearing really suiting the engine character. With the 4.57s there would be even more of a burden on the driver to get the gear correct for the situation but then that is ok because the stock car makes you work for the power so its not changing the character of the car to drive. The reward however is far far greater

I'd love to make the change but only the noise puts me off sadly

Turtle

Craig, if you want to compare the gearing, you need to use the torque at the wheels at every given speed - that's the acceleration. The area under the curve. There's more than just the rpm change. Don't think just about vtec, think about the area under the torque curve you'll be using to accelerate between two speeds. That's the important bit. If you think how the acceleration feels in 3rd compared to 4th with standard gearing, then post change 4th feels more like the old third - happy to scream.

Anyway, IMHO the gearing change is a very good real worl improvement. I loved the 4.57 on my car. I'm sure Biker1 would agree about the 4.57 on his car too. The noise is a bit annoying though... with your exhaust probably not an issue. But if I was changing the gearing on an S2000 for myself again, I'd probably go for the 4.44:1 to avoid the noise - but my exhaust preferrence is for something with a nice tone, rather than outright volume.

-Brian.

S2KPDQ

This is spot on.

You cannot compare the benefits of a changed final drive on the basis of a change in engine revs for a given speed.

It's multiplied torque at the rear wheels which is the key here and the 4.57 final drive provides a significant benefit over stock in this respect.

I too would do this mod' in an instant if it weren't for the whining that some of the guys in the states have had to endure from the diff. It is far more effective than trying to ring an extra 2-3bhp from the engine...

1st gear on an S2000 is a joke and is likely the result of Honda needing to ensure a higher top-end speed to please the press (2nd-6th gears are pretty close and tightly stacked after the overly long 1st). I'd rather have a top wack of say 130mph-140mph and really blistering acceleration rather than merely good acceleration and 150mph+ potential.

Andy

rmotegi

Does anyone have any 0 -100 times for comparison?

The 4.44 solution sounds encouraging.

Crusoe

my standard overtake would be back road overtaking someone doing around 60, the 3rd gear upto 90 to overtake was perfect but i'd run out of revs quickly and need to change gear durring the overtake whihc isn't the best thing to do when making the most of the availiable gaps in traffic. The higher revs at motorway type speeds would also be annoying, for a quick weekend fun car it makes sence but i think it would spoil things a bit for a daily driver.

Saxo Boy

I would also greatly appreciate information on the 4.44 set if they really do not affect the noise of the gearbox. Can somone post up max speeds in each gear for that setup and any info on where you can get 4.44 done in the UK and how much would be appreciated

eSeM

Looking at the info on Ricks website the 4.44 gear is now difficult to get hold of

chilled

An interesting point. By my (rough) calculations, top of 6th is good for 170mph+ even if the engine doesn't have the power to get it there.

I can hazard a probably wrong guess why this is the case. A flagship car like this in Japan is going to get tuned and modded, and for a lot of people, the idea of touching the gearing is scary. Everyone's interested in power, even though the easiest ways to get "power" as perceived on the street are to lose weight and to shorten the gearing. But those things don't get measured on a dyno.

I'm probably talking crap as usual but it would been nicer to shorten the gearing a little.

Even though I have tracked and will track again my S2000, I'd actually like all gears apart from 6th shortened, and the 6th lengthened for fuel economy on the motorway. My S is also my daily driver...