Thinking about going with a 4.77 final drive (Kia Sportage gear) for my hpde /track day car. Haven't seen any feedback on the forum from track guys.

Anyone have experience on this for their track car? Pros/cons to the swap?

I only drive to/from the track so not too concerned about daily drivability issues.

Thanks in advance for the help

 

what tracks do you go to?

 

Are you FI?

 

I hope this gearing favors the course you will be running

 

I'd stick with OEM gearing for HPDE.

 

NA car, tracks I go to are NJMP, watkins glen, Lime rock.

Thanks guys for all the input, I think i'll stick with stock gearing for now.

 

I ran some numbers as I'm looking at building a diff and it seems the 4.56 is a good choice for AP2 trans and 4.77 for AP1. Car is NA and hasn't seen street in over 2 years.

 

4.44 at most. At certain tracks the extra shifting will actually net slower lap times.

 

4.44 generally is beneficial in an Ap1 unless you have some good breathing mods with lowered vtec, then leave it stock, unless you know the specific track your running on favors the lower gearing.

Ap2 leave it stock. Actually better with an ap1 trans to touch 60mph in one shift instead of two and generally broadening the added power that motor makes in each gear.

 

I bought my AP2 a while back, and the previous owner had installed a 4.77.
It was absolutely terrible, 70mph was 5k rpm on the freeway. The powerband was super narrow. The amount of shifting you had to do easily made up for any torque gains, and I felt like the car was actually slower on track because of it. It was just like being down a gear all the time, like the gearbox had a 0-5 instead of a 1-6.
I think you can find a better place to throw money at an S2000.