Im finally gonna start modding my car<actually have money now>
One of the first things is gears
mine has a 3;23 ratio...is that good?bad?ect
i was tolds to go to 373s?whats your advice..
my main goal is 1/4 mile times
thanks

 

3:23s aren't bad, you have some acceleration, decent top speed and mpg. Now on to selecting new gears. And listen very carefully to this first point. You want to select gears that will keep your car in your power band rpm wise. That is of course if you want the best 1/4 mile and top speed comes 2nd. For ex: a stock TPI stops breathing @4500 rpms, so don't get 3:73s cause you'll run out of rpms. Or if you don't have a cam and intake (such as TPI) that supports power past 4500 rpms I wouldn't go with 3:73s, 3:42s would work best. Now if you want to do gears now and then get a cam and intake later to match the gears that would be ok to get 3:73s, but you'll only benefit in the 0-60 mph. This is what happened to me. See, my cam stops making power past 3500 rpms, and like an idiot who didn't ask enough questions I got 3:73s.
This is how it turned out
G-Teched my car before and after

w/ 2:73s, stock cat-back and a burnt plug wire I ran 15.41 @93 mph

w/3:73 posi, Hooker Cat-back, tune up I ran 15.32 @95

boy was I mad when I wasn't even in the 14s. What happened was I picked the wrong gears and now I'm stuck about to buy a new cam and installing it.

 

thanks for input mark,and for saving me some cash

 

If your car stopped making power at 3500 rpm, sounds like you used the wrong cam, not gears. What's the object of modifing these cars? To go faster right? You can't go FASTER with a cam that stops making any power at 3500. In my opinion 323s are for big blocks or long stroke small blocks, not 5.0 or 5.7s. I just noticed your thinking of installing a comp xe268. That'll work great with those 373s. To benefit the most out of that cam try using a 2100 / 2300 stall converter.

 

I bought a crate motor and that's the cam it came with. I didn't have the money for a ZZ4 so I got a basic replacement. The TC will come next year. I'm getting a paint job too, so that's going to take up some money.