[Alan Roehrich]

Things to consider about low gear sets:

1. The lower first gear is, the wider the spread between the gears. Including second and third.

2. Wider spread between gears leads to a greater RPM drop, although that is somewhat mitigated by the stall speed of the converter.

3. Increasing the time you spend at your stall speed in a gear may not lead to greater torque multiplication, or more time at peak torque multiplication.

4. More time slipping the converter can hurt ET and MPH.

5. The lower the gear, the lower the wheel speed is at the shift.

6. Number 5 above can be made worse by the wider spread between gears.

7. All of the above can lead to very poor shift recovery.

8. All of the above can be very hard on engines without a lot of torque and HP.

For a lot of combinations, you reach the point of diminishing returns around 2.75:1.

It is a trade off. One way to tell would be to put more rear gear in the car, and see if it responds with better ET in the 1/8 mile. Then see if it hurts the back half of the 1/4 mile. A rear gear won't cost as much as a low gear set, and might be easier to sell if it does not work. For example, if you're at 5.14 now, try a 5.38. If that doesn't help you in at least the first 330', the low gear set probably won't either.

Remember that when you increase the gear ratio, you're almost certain to have to shift sooner.

You might try one of the ET prediction programs.