I think with the 6 speed 3.73's would be ideal because of the higher ratips, 4.10's with the five speeds for sure though!

 

Originally Posted by Camaro5
Remember the GT500 barely clips the SS in Stock OEM trim. doesn't it have 540hp? 12.8 vs 12.9 come on Ford!

This is the problem with internet racing. Anyone who thinks the GT500 and Camaro SS are in the same league are kidding themselves.

The 2007 GT500 (500 bhp) ran at least 12.2's with the Driver's Mod (Dont know what the current record is) compared to 12.6 for the 2010 Camaro SS LS3. I seriously doubt the 2010 GT500 (540 bhp) was slower. I suspect a 2011 GT500 (550 bhp + Aluminum Block) "Competition Package" will run 11's under the correct conditions.

If I was going to compare new cars I would use 12.6 (Camaro SS), 12.4 (5.0) and 11.9 (GT500) as my "potential" numbers for showroom stock cars

 

See this confuses me. I have 3.31 gears in my 11' GT and I don't feel my car is slow, of course I have yet to drive one with 3.73 gears. But, from the many threads I've read it seems that in a 1/4 mile the 3.31 is possibly faster than the 3.73 or if it's not then it's barely behind. This makes me wonder why would people swap gears then, if the change is so minimal.

 

your car is not slow with the 3.31s, whether a 3.31, 3.55 or 3.73 crosses the finish line first or has a better time is going to come down to the driver mod

the 3.73 is clearly, to me imo, meant to maximize acceleration on the street and 1/4 mile
running against the limiter at the finish line is maximizing gear ratios, isn't it?

the fine points about the stock car and the times they are running are boiling down to the traction available with the stock tires
MM&FF already showed that with drag radials they went 12.3, now we only need a 3.31 car with drag radials to see if it can dig it's way out of the hole and power those gears to the same time

when you say the change is so minimal, come back after and tell us how minimal it is after a bog at the line or what happened after a 2nd gear 30-40 mile roll
sure, a driver with 3.73s can mess up and bog or spin too much but as far as the difference being minimal, losing will magnify everything

 

I'm definitely not trying to start anything. I was orginally going to order my car with that gear ratio, but my local dealer had a manual sitting on there lot with 3.31's and I jumped on it. Now, I've thought about and in fact am going to ask how much it would cost to change my gears to 3.73's, but I still want to drive one with it to see the difference before I take the plunge.

 

IMHO, 3.55 seem like thet'll be the optimal gear for a street driver car with the steeper 1st gear ratio in the '11s. The 3.55s in the '11 = 3.73s in the '05-'09 cars, or pretty close.

Also IMHO, there is only so much hp/tq you can put on the pavement with street tires. The rubber is the limiting factor with our cars.

412 hp is A LOT of hp for a street car and we are fooling ourselves if we think that a stock suspension car should hook with those numbers.

I could be wrong but around 300 RWHP is about the limit on the street until you run into serious traction issues that require after market help. AT least that is the limit I've seen over the years.

 

Get 3.31s if you are a) not going to barely ever strip it and are just gonna drive it around town or b) more worried about MPG than MPH.

Get 3.55s if you are going to take it to the strip occasionally, but it's still going to be very much a DD (no slicks, etc). This is the option I went with.

Get 3.73s if this car is going to live on the strip, or if you have another car as a DD.

Obviously, there are large gray areas between the three, and others will feel differently, but that's just my ever-so-humble opinion. Can you DD a 3.73 car? Sure! Is it as practical as 3.55s? Well, no...

 

Great discussion-

I think I'm settled on the 3.73s...but I'm tempted to switch it to the 3.55s after reading more.

How far along can you still make changes to your order anyway? The salesman said I wouldn't have a vin for another week or so.

 

You should be able to change it at the dealer up until it gets an official build day (build days are decided based on expected supply, so they don't like you changing orders past this point). Once it has a build day, all changes have to be approved by Ford through a customer service call I believe, and I think this can happen up until a couple days before build day.

 

the reason why the 3.31's are faster in the quarter mile is because the 3.73 runs out of gear at the quarter mile. if instead of 0.25 miles, you were racing 0.30 miles, then it would be a different story and the 3.73's would probably win.

that is, assuming the driver is driving the car to its maximum potential and not spinning the tires.

 

yeah, you can always waste the extra torque by spinning tires, but in a scenario where the driver is good enough to not spin the tires, the 3.73 will accelerate faster (maybe not in first gear, where you're limited by traction, but definately in 2nd, 3rd, and 4th, etc.)