Most pro's use multiple diffs. Custom transmission FTW lol.

 

You don't care about the cruising speed but you care about how the car pulls from 100 mph when you punch it? How often do you do a pull from 100 mph??!

 

Never

 

horsepower is realative, torque is what gets you there. I wish I had 450 lbs of torque when putting 200 hp to the wheelz, I'd need a neck brace. the engineering guys can give you the formula

 

Every lap, on the front straight.

 

[QUOTE=P5744D,Dec 25 2007, 11:48 PM] horsepower is realative, torque is what gets you there.

 

I think a nice balance is important, torque for down low and hp for up top, obviously thats ideal. Unfortunately with a high compression NA engine the only way to get torque is increase displacement or use mods that improve torque but generally decrease hp. I myself would prefer hp from up top and midrange torque. Getting there is another story. Gears are a good mod.

 

That must be a looong front straight

 

Agreed

 

Exit of T9 is about 90 mph. So the entire front straight is one long WOT pull between 90-130 mph.

And that's one of the reasons why "gears" are very definitely a tradeoff, rather than a magical advantage.

At Pacific Raceways I never really get into sixth, so in theory I should probably have a taller final drive gear to let me use that gearing. But I also just barely can get into second in the slowest corners. If I had taller gears, I would be stuck going through those slow corners in third.

Basically, as long as you are operating in the powerband of the car, there is little or no advantage to changing final drive ratios either way, unless you also have the freedom to change individual gear ratios as well. Even then it's tricky, as descibed in Race Car Engineering.

Power and acceleration come from the engine, not the gears. But still there will always be people who do not understand this.