To be honest, no i don't have gears, but i was on the market for one b/c i heard that they get you to the power band quicker and help you acc. better but after talking to a senior s2k owner "fadi", he told me about how it would affect my mpg and that i would be in the high rpm while cruising on the high way. So i asked some more locals that have experience in gearing and they told me, it is good for accel., but bad for dd.

If this was my weekend car and not my dd, i would have gotten the gears 4.77 without a second thought!

about the brand name parts, not all brand name headers will work for an ap2 like spoon, rick's and mugen ap1(of course)

 

4.3 or 4.44 aint bad for DD cruising at 70 ur right at 4k rpms

 

how much does gears really help on your 1/4 mile time?

 

From my AEM EMS datalogs, some acceleration times in third from 25 to 75 mph :

Stock differential :
8.50s

Rick's 4.56 gear added :
7.44s

Hytech cams added :
6.96s

2.5L short block added :
5.56s

PWJDM intake added :
5.46s

Now, these figures don't really show all the benefit of each mod as the engine response (the throttle was already fully opened before 25mph) but I think it is a good scale to compare the contribution of each mod.