3:73's: My 2 cents worth

[kmauldin]

I know there are probably hundreds of threads about this already, but after my experience with gears, I wanted to re-enforce the importance of changing the gears if you are modding.

After investigating a peculiar sound from the rear-end, I had the rear axle assembly taken apart and found bad carrier/axle bearings and pitted axles. Since the gears had to come out anyway, I had the original 2:73's traded for 3:73's.

My stang comes almost as stock as you can get, but HOLY SMOKES what a difference gears make!! If you don't have 'em, get 'em. The car used to be so sluggish before, but launches like it's on springs now. It operates at higher revs now as well. At 80, the rpms were barely at 1800; now are about 2400. I thought this was fine since the 4.6 breathes better at around 2500 rpms anyway. I lost a couple of miles to the gallon, which to me was not a big deal. If you do a lot of highway driving I could understand moving to 3:55's or even 3:27's, but nothing higher. I guess I gotta change my sig.