It is almost a daily occurrence in the New Jersey digs of MM&FF, late in the afternoon as our attention spans begin to dwindle and our workload eases the bench racing begins. This afternoon, our Editorial Director, Jim Campisano, popped in on a conversation that Evan Smith and I were having about the finer points of gearing in a Two-Valve Mustang. The car in question is the subject in a series of tech stories that are scheduled to start in the next issue of MM&FF. Our test subject is an automatic-equipped ride and it has 3.73 gears. Naturally, they aren't the optimal gearing for the car and we thought adding a set of 4.10s (which we sourced from Pro 5.0 Shifters) was a good idea.
I questioned if Kenny Miele , of Yo, Ken! fame, wouldn't mind the extra gearing on his high way commute. Naturally, Kenny wouldn't mind the extra performance as it definitely outweighs the loss in the MPG department. That is when the Boss injected his disgust with his current rear gear in Superfly, Destroyer of Hideous Camaros, project car. The dude has been driving everyday with a 4.88 gear in his 8.8 rear! He said it hums along the highway at 3,000-rpm and gets a paltry 15 mpg. Ugh. That is terrible considering he has a six-speed transmission behind his fortified N/A Four-Valve Cobra engine.
So we ordered two sets of 4.10 gears, one for Kenny's new project car and a set for Campy's Superfly. He laughed and said he could finally hook the nitrous system back up to his engine and have some fun on the track with a 150 shot. Campy's ride is definitely a fun Cobra as it can run hard on a road course and go high 11s without any power adders on the quarter-mile.
I laughed at him the entire time, in my mind of course, as my '07 Stang gets a rather stellar 24 mpg in mixed highway and city driving. The wonders of 3.31 gears compared to the huge numerical gearing.