I recently did my 1st track day at Motorsport Ranch near Fort Worth, TX. It was also my 1st track experience with 4.77 gears. My expectations were that the gears would be a big benefit, but I'm really not sure now. I have been completely unable to decide if stock gears would have been better, worse, or if gears between 4.10 and 4.77s would have been better.

I was able to do the whole track using 3rd and 4th gears, but I would consistantly hit the rev limitter at the end of some straights. Depending on how well I took the previous corner, I might occasionally make a quick shift to 5th for ~1 second, then back to 4th for the upcoming corner. With stock gears, I would definitely have to use 2nd, 3rd, and 4th, but never 5th. What I'm not sure about is if it might have been better to have stock gears, so that I could use 2nd through the tight corners, which might achieve a higher top speed down the straights. I'm also confident that I will get faster on this track with more time out there, which would make 5th gear more necessary. Wouldn't it be better to use 2nd, 3rd, and 4th with 4.10s, than it would to use 3rd, 4th, and 5th with 4.77s?

My reason for asking about this is because I am POSITIVE that the 4.77s have really hurt my autocross performance. At last weekend's autocross, the FTD winning S2000 (4.10s) was able to do the whole course with only 3 gear changes (1st -> 2nd -> 3rd -> 2nd), while I had to do 11 gear changes (1st -> 2nd -> 3rd -> 2nd -> 3rd -> 2nd -> 3rd -> 2nd -> 3rd -> 2nd -> 3rd -> 2nd). It absolutely killed me. I was never able to use 2nd gear in a straight line, while everyone else was.

Anyway, here is the video. I would really appreciate your comments, but I already know that my driving line was not great, and I wasn't smooth...

 

Hmm, well it's hard to say. My opinion is that gears giveth and taketh away. I think this is true in the same respect with forced induction. More power for a shorter length of time. Having paced other cars using lower gears at the track I haven't found a major difference. i have been able to keep up with cars running 4.44s down long straights, usually picking up at the end what I gave up at the start.

For example at Willow Springs with a great long 4th/5th straight ending in a 95 mph left hander I would exit on to the straight right behind another car. I could draft dead even with them for 3/4 of the length and then for the last 1/4 pull on them setting me up for a juicy pass at the end. This other car was running 4.44s.

Now I also think that 4.44s are probably the right way to go on the track overall and I might install some myself for OTC but 4.77 I think is just too low overall. You give up at least a car length every time you lift the throttle.

IMHO anyway.

 

4.44s would have certainly fixed my problem at the end of the straights, but I think that I might have then needed to go down to 2nd in the tighter corners. In that scenario, I think I would have been bouncing the rev limitter at corner exit.

 

One thing is for certain, with the shorter gears you increase the chances you'll need to shift during a turn.

Your 5 - 4 downshift on the entry to the right hand sweeper wouldnt be needed with 4.10s with the way you drive it now. However, as you get faster, you would be shifting into 5th even with the 4.10s. At which point you'd probably want to still do the downshift to 4th. With the 4.77 when you are faster there is a good chance you can keep it in 5th for that sweeper.

As you can see it depends... on alot of things.

 

I expect to get faster, but I don't think that ANYBODY could achieve an extra 16 MPH on that course with my car's current setup. I guess if I went FI, slicks, and gutted the car ...

Max speed in 4th with 4.77s is ~100 MPH, but top speed in 4th with 4.10s is ~116 MPH.

 

Well, there were corners where the gears forced you to shift more, but there were also sections where the stock gears would have probably left you in a similar situation and the 4.77s were better. Pity you didn't drive the track with your stock setup first and determined where you were having problems. Then you'd realise right away where you were gaining / losing time.

As you get faster, you'll probably overcome the problem corners. Also, when you run into traffic and have to change your line, the extra punch of the gears could help you get back up to speed quicker.

Other tracks could also favour different diff ratios. The corners I encounter are normally rather long ones that force me to choose gears carefully lest I need to upshift mid-corner.

Keep making videos; they're a great post-event method of rating your performance.

Lots of runoff there! There's hardly 3m of grass between the track and the armco at the Nurburgring... we only have gravel traps on 2 of the 174 bends!

First track day eh? Wasn't it FUN?

///Robin

 

Where you were running out of 3rd (or 4th?) did you actually try upshifting? My guess is that the problem is that the S2k gears are too tightly spaced regardless of the final drive you have. I will have to dig up some vids of me at MSR but I know I was shifting a lot and in and out of VTEC.

Keep in mind that MSR is a tiny fricking course, too. All cars shift a lot there unless they are torque monsters.

 

It wasn't my 1st track day, just my 1st day at MSR.

The video contained 2 laps, and I did shift to 5th in the 2nd lap because I took the S's better before the longest straight. I managed to hit the rev limitter in 4th gear on each of the 3 long straights at some point throughout the day. I don't think I ever had a chance to use 5th gear well.

 

For reference, here's a video of me with my 4.10s on that same track. Keep in mind, I was on street tires, and gernby was on R-compounds, but you can see where my shift points were. I should've been back into 3rd for both of the right-hand sweepers, but I was lazy. On R-compounds, staying in 4th probably would've been the right move.

Anyway, for your viewing pleasure:
8.5Mb, 3 minutes
Right-click, Save As...
The video

 

I have noted all along that the impact of gears would be very track dependant. In my in my experience at both TWS and MSR I think the additional changes are a large disadvantage compared to the gain in acceleration or flexibility in a few turns.

You are right.. lower gears can easily slow you down in many venues.