Gears

[wraith_2006]

If I am the second owner of a car, and I dont know all of the mods that the last owner made... is there and easy way to tell if the gears have been upgrade? or do I have to pull of the pinion cover and look?

 

[COBRA90GT]

You can get a good "ballpark" estimate by doing the following:

Jack up the car. Make a mark on the pinion/pinion snout so you can count the number of revolutions for the driveshaft.

Use a pen or white out to place a mark on a tire/wheel. With the car in neutral, spin the driveshaft by hand one revolution and count the number of times the rear wheel goes around.

For reference, factory gear ratio for 96-98, 99/01 was 3.27. 03/04 snakes came with 3.55.

 

[fobra559]

Or you can call and talk to the previous owner about what they did to the car? (if possible)

 

[bigmoose15]

first verify your speedo is correct by driving next to a friend or something. then use this to determine you gear ratio by speed and RPM:

http://www.svtoa-atlanta.org/cgi-bin/trans.cgi