I'm fresh into the whole car thing so I was wondering what the difference is between my 2.73 and ohhh lets say a 3.73 or any other rear end. I also have a problem when I put the car in gear it makes a loud clunking noise, what could this be?? Thanks for any answers and advice.

 

Well the difference between two ratios and how they behave in a car are wide and varried, and depend largely on the application.

A gear ratio is simply the number of teeth on the ring gear divided by the number of teeth on the pinion gear. These are the two gears inside the rearend of a car. The ratio is always expressed as x.xx:1, because this represents how many turns the engine must make for each full revolution of the tires. Therefore, the 1 is a constant for 1 full tire revolution. The x.xx ratio is determined as above, and is given 3 significant digits, because this is the industry standard, even though you may get a longer decimal when actually dividing the gear teeth.

Typically a higher numerically ratio will make the car accelerate faster, because of greater mechanical advantgae (more engine revolutions per tire revolution), but the trade off is increased RPM at a steady cruise on the highway, and bad gas mileage.

A lower (numerically) ratio will tend to make the car accelerate slower, but have an increased top speed, and better RPM and gas mileage on the highway.

 

The clunking sound you hear could be your trans mount...a pretty simple fix.

The difference between 2.73 and 3.73 is that you want to get rid of your 2.73 ASAP.

 

what should I get rid of the 2.73?? what one would you get?

 

the 2.73 is a pretty meek gear, that's all. if you replaced it with 3.42 or 3.73 and the slp posi you'd really see a big performance improvement.

i have the same car, what color is yours?

 

dark mettalic green....I'd send ya a pic but I haven't figured out how to do that yet. Can you find them used fairly cheap in a graveyard or elsewhere? what color is yours?

 

if you want to find something in a junkyard, it's possible to find rears with higher gears, posis, and even disc brakes. that would be the cheap way to do it, but you dont always know what you're getting. most people opt to buy the gears and kit for $300, the slponline.com takeout posi for $100, and have someone put them in for ~$200. it is fairly expensive but it makes a night and day difference in your car.