Don't know if this should be posted in Under the Hood. But I figure I'd get more exposure here...

I've had the 4.77's in for about 2 months now. At first the gears seemed great. Of course most of it is my expectations were set pretty high after reading such great reviews and such. Throttle response is sharper and down low power, while not neck breaking, has become a bit more favorable.

Prior to installing the gears, I had a few runs on wide open roads with a local owner with a stock MY01. Additions to my car are HKS exhaust and 17" ASA FR1's. For some reason, even if he got the jump at the start, I would pull back near him and eventually pass him up by 4th gear or so. Seemed odd enough for me at that time. Our driving skills are about the same.

Then I have the 4.77's installed. My first impressions were great. I wanted to run my friend again for comparison purposes and hopefully be able to tell everyone the great news. Keep in mind his car is completely stock still while mine have the same mods + 4.77's. Of course I am thinking the 4.77's should help me pull a little bit more since I already did with the stock gears.

1st run on open road. Light turns green and I do a light launch from 4K rpm and he slips his clutch and we leave the start about the same. 1st to 2nd shift for me, and he pulls ahead and he maintains this and keeps pulling until he gets about 2 car lengths on me. I am not a slow shifter by any means. We are both not driving any differently from our previous runs.

We decide to give it another run and the 2nd time from about ~15mph roll going on the 3rd honk. I signal the 3rd honk and I get the jump. I stay ahead through 1st and then he immediately starts gaining on me and gets next to me in 2nd, then he pulls another car length in front of me while I'm maxing my car out. I am obviously stunned at the outcome. I wanted to go from a roll to make things a little more fair for comparison purposes by not factoring a launch. So the end result by about 100 mph he had about 2 cars on me again.

After both runs we come to the conclusion that his car is obviously faster than mine.

I now am wondering if it is worth it to keep the 4.77's after seeing what has happened. I knew I would be sacrificing higher rpms and more shifts in town hoping to get in return better performance. But perhaps the car reaching redline quicker creates an illusion that the car is actually faster than it was before. I am not sure, but I am definitely upset. I am now sacrificing what I already knew I would, and now along with PERFORMANCE. I am definitely debating on putting my 4.10s back in.

Has anyone here with different gearsets run against stock cars? I'd really like to know what is going on... This is definitely a very sad day.

 

...i'm the guy that raced him...strange how the gears aren't working like they should...
this is the video before the gears were installed...
http://members.cox.net/s2ki2/112_1211.AVI
(...its a 9MB file...56Gay is a No NO! wait for it to load)
we both had a gay launch...light was taking forever to turn green..you can see how impatient we got reving up the RPM then shutting it back down....and the camera man shook the camera of bordum...

the gears are probably working, i might have a superman car or something

i am completely stock with only an amuse lip installed...
probability that i beat him is:
1. 2 notch of gas indicated (his showed half tank)
2. weight reduction (him weighing 145lbs, me - 105lbs; also his audio equipment - 20-30lbs)
3. aero-dynamics from the amuse lip!

but just to let you know from the video...before the gears, we were bout dead even when the camera shut down and then he starts gaining on me, but now after the gears are installed...i'm taking him on 2 cars when 100mph hits.

 

ha ha ha

 

This is exactly what I was worried about when I was deciding between 4.57 and 4.77 gears. Since the higher gears will help you accelerate quicker- the bad part is- it sacrafices some top-end speed for each gear the stock one had. That's probably why he was able to pull on you. The only way you can accomadate the sacraficed speed from your 4.77 is to switch to a larger rim, so that the overal diameter of wheel >is greater than the stock wheel diameter. This would generally give you a higher top end speed for each gear and theoretically, this should give you that advantage you were looking for.

I'm in the process installing my 4.57. Hopefully I'll be done with it by this monday and give you my observations on it

- See if you can find someone w/ an s2k that has bigger wheels than you have on now so you can run your friend again. Test it out and see if the outcome is different.

 

I do have bigger wheels... I think this is how I pulled on him when I had the stock gears.

 

It was really silly experience. More of a shock than anything. I would be sitting there with my foot to the floor and just watch his car pull away from me. There was nothing I could do.

 

glad i didn't do that mod yet!!!

 

[QUOTE]Originally posted by swtazn97

- See if you can find someone w/ an s2k that has bigger wheels than you have on now so you can run your friend again.

 

Yeah maybe, but the bigger wheels have the problem of more mass at the outside of the wheel. This mass has enertia that a gear set can't even compare to so I think the big wheels, beside looking dumb, will further hurt performance and you checkbook!

That's too bad for you Cheetah. I hate it when good mods go bad.

 

Several things to consider....
(1) you have an HKS exhaust, which has been reported to LOOSE power
(2) There can be anywhere from a 5-10 hp difference between car to car, from the same factory.
(3) Driver error
(4) bigger wheels SLOW you down, not vice versa.

I have the 4.77 and I pull on stock S2000. This weekend I ran with a buddy who is FI and it wasn't until 3rd gear that he started to pull.