Hi I recently purchased a 4.56 prepped differential from jeff at hardtopguy and may I say at a great price....


Install impression.....The install was pretty straight forward and instead of taking out the lower ball joint(which I was afraid of messing up) I followed the advice of s2kVABeachCruiser on his other thread and just took out the two bolts on the upper control arm. Although taking out 1 of the bolt on each arm was pretty hard because the springs were in the way. All in all I got it done in about 3 hours with a friend but could of done it faster but I wanted to take my time and be sure I was doing everything right....if I were to do it again it probably take about 2 hours considering I opened up the shop where I worked at and used the lift and my co-workers tool to help ease installation.....


Driving impression........man my S hauls ass now in all of the gears but you'll notice it more in 1st and 2nd as they fly by pretty quick. Some might be concerned with the extra 500 rpm in 6th but to me thats acceptable and shouldn't be a problem considering this is a high revving motor anyways and it makes 6th gear more useable.....

Gear Whine impression......what gear whine? I can barely hear it when driving the exhaust and outside noise probably drowned out the whine.....also with the radio on I doubt anyone would complain about the whine.....

Overall impression......I love this mod and couped with the s/c will make this a whole new car to try to master/drive.....I would recommend this mod to anyone....


I'll have more feedback once I break the gears in and probably have my s/c installed by then and anyone with any questions about the gears I'll try to answer as best as I can.....


P.S. also some people have reported that they stripped the bolts that is on both end of the propeller shaft...for me all I did was use a ratchet with extension and hammered the sockets into the nut tightly so I wouldn't strip it when I try to get it out and it worked wonderfully......not a single nut was stripped.....

 

wow.. so would you say the install is harder than installing coilovers? or easier?

 

the install wasn't that bad as I had detailed pictures and all the necessary tools to take the differential out....

 

Does installing gears void the factory warranty? Wouldn't be shocked but I just have to ask..

 

almost certainly yes, at least on the transmission and differential.

the beauty of it is they would never know unless you told them, though.

 

well, no, still easy to tell...jack up the rear wheels, put the car in neutral, spin the tires 1 rotation and count the # of times the drive shaft turns....I'm willing to bet with the 4.56 gears the driveshaft turns just over 4.5 times/1rev, and with stock gears, just under 4 times/1rev of the tires....

 

Congrats on the install! Be interested to hear how the car performs with the S/C and gear combo...should haul A! My next mod is my Bilstein PSS9's which are due friday. Can't wait!

 

my policy is if they don't ask I don't tell .....just took the car on a little 30 mile road trip and the increase rpm doesn't bother me that much as I thought it would....

 

Are these the same gears that Ricks is selling? His are actually 4.57's I know but just wondering who makes these. Is it Richmond, too?

 

4.57 are actually 4.56r (revised), they are the same ratio but modified to reduce whine and change the name b/c they are not the same design. Both made by Richmond