Ok so i'm definatly an idiot when it comes to gears, but being that i just bought 3.73's for my car i gotta ask.
if im rollin down the street and the same car with the same mods rolls up next to me, but he has 3.27's and i have 3.73's, if we race from 2nd gear to third gear, is he going to beat me or will i accelerate faster and outrun him?
if i ever race from a rolling start i always start in second is why i ask. cause the one time i tried it from third it felt like the car didn't want to go and i definatly lost that one.
You'll win - not by much, but you'll win. You have to remember that the only thing you're changing with the 3.73s is the ratio of the number of turns of the driveshaft to the number of turns of the rear wheels. You aren't magically creating more torque - torque transfers are limited by the efficiencies of your powertrain - you're just simply trying to keep your engine in the powerband by changing what RPM you're at for a given speed. Think about the situation you proposed: Two cars with identical mods and torque curves - one with a 3.27 and one with a 3.73. If you're both running at say, 40mph, then the car with the 3.27 is at ~3400RPM and the car with the 3.73 is at ~3780RPM (assuming both cars are running a 285/35/18 tire). So the instant you both go WOT, the car with the 3.73s will be putting slightly more torque to the ground - assuming 1: the tires don't spin, and 2: the engine creates more torque at 3780RPM than at 3400RPM - which is obviously true for our 2V 281s.
The thing that's interesting about that situation (and the thing that always creates controversy about proper gearing) is that now the guy with the 3.73s has to shift into 3rd earlier than the guy with the 3.27 - and that shift is going to drop his engine RPM to a point where he's making less torque than the guy with the 3.27...but to answer your original question: yes, from a roll in 2nd, you'll beat him to 3rd.