it's all about gears!

[oldtamiyaphile]

Originally Posted by euromodder

The ZF's transmission ratios are

4.696 3.130 2.104 1.667 1.285 1.000 0.839 0.667

Of course, it all depends on the final drive, but 0.667 is a fair bit of overdrive
(Yes, some 'Vettes have a longer top gear ...)

Check out the new Ford Transit 6 speed.

3.727 1.864 1.121 0.844 0.780 0.683 Final Drive: 4.190

Three close stacked overdrive gears! I only average 27km/h so it basically would have been a 3-4 speed for my normal use. I went with the more convervatively geared VW Transporter (~1000rpm at 60km/h).

[euromodder]

Originally Posted by Old Tele man

Yep, IMHO, only 4-manual gears are needed:

First, to get you moving.
Second, for urban driving.
Third, for highway driving.
Reverse, for going backward.

...of course, the above ASSUMES the proper/appropriate/correct gear ratios are being used.

That'd leave a pretty huge gearing gap in-between those driving conditions.

Fuel consumption dropped along with more gears, either manual or automatic, allowing the tops to be longer geared.


On the up! I can do 30 mph in 5th @ just above idle, level & steady, so I'd like to have a 6th to cut down rpm on the motorway or at higher speeds.
It's not that the gearing is badly chosen though, as it needs its gears to move about in a sort of half decent fashion.
0-60 is reportedly a solid 16 seconds (It feels a bit faster).

It'd be a real dog on 3 forward gears.

[euromodder]

Originally Posted by oldtamiyaphile

Three close stacked overdrive gears! I only average 27km/h so it basically would have been a 3-4 speed for my normal use. I went with the more convervatively geared VW Transporter (~1000rpm at 60km/h).

3 overdrive gears let down by the short final drive, so revving too high for your regular use.

More gears would have helped it retain a good initial pull in low gears, often needed in heavily loaded vans, yet long geared for efficient highway use.

1000 rpm @ 60kph should be pretty efficient.
It's all about picking what suits one best.

[oldtamiyaphile]

Originally Posted by euromodder

3 overdrive gears let down by the short final drive, so revving too high for your regular use.

4.2 is a really tall final for a van. Top gear might only be 10% higher than your Up! (same FD), but don't forget how much bigger the tyres are. Transit Custom actually does 1600rpm at 100km/h. For my usual routes of 60km/h, I would have only been able to use the first four ratios.

[cRiPpLe_rOoStEr]

Originally Posted by euromodder

On the up! I can do 30 mph in 5th @ just above idle, level & steady, so I'd like to have a 6th to cut down rpm on the motorway or at higher speeds.
It's not that the gearing is badly chosen though, as it needs its gears to move about in a sort of half decent fashion.

With an engine that may be considered kinda underpowered for highway performance, extra gears really make more sense.

You may remember this one, the Brazilian-made Fiat Palio Weekend (some versions were exported regularly to Western Europe), which had a 1.0L engine exclusively to our local market.



Only with this engine a 6-speed transmission was available, while the other ones fitted with the 1.2L Fire, 1.5L SOHC and 1.6L 16-valve long-stroke there was only a 5-speed. A handful naturally-aspirated Diesels were also fitted with this transmission to the Argentinian market, not so sure if they had the 1.7L or the 1.3L which had been still available in Uruguay for the regular Palio hatchback until 2000.

[serialk11r]

Originally Posted by Old Tele man

That's what I say about California's six-lane "parking lots" during rush hours.

That's actually the situation when I think having more gears is the most helpful. 2nd gear is too long in my car for crawling sometimes, but 1st feels wasteful running the engine at over 1000rpm doing zero work, and continually modulating the clutch to P&G at 5mph is extremely annoying. Also I commonly find the traffic moving at ~10mph, which is barely inaccessible to 3rd gear. The C60 6 speed transmission would give me 3 gears to crawl in instead of 2.

All that said I do think that excessively close ratio gears are not very useful. "Sporty ratios" often means the ratio between the higher gears is something like 0.85, which is really useless for street driving. Dropping it to a 0.8 ratio is a small loss in power but much more usable. A 25% drop in rpm is a little bothersome for executing the shift but is more practical. My preference is having the rpm go down between 19-22% between all gears except the first 2 and the last 2, and 2nd gear having a lot of grunt so I don't have to use 1st, and that preference is something that can only really be satisfied on a 6+ speed transmission. The Toyota 5 speed used for the 1ZZ has ratios 3.166,1.904,1.392,1.031,0.815, I would prefer the first 4 gears from the C60 and then the 0.725 gear for the 5th. That would be a very usable 5 speed gearbox on the street, but I wouldn't really enjoy driving it if I had more rpm on tap, and the mpg would suck if the engine were higher displacement. Which is why I argued, 6 speeds is kind of necessary.

[P-hack]

Originally Posted by cRiPpLe_rOoStEr

In city traffic I don't enjoy shifting at all.

Sounds like whining. Do you prefer walking?

[ecomodded]

My Beetle has 5 gears and they are all short & quick gears , I can bang threw them from 1st gear to 5th without raising my RPM over 1300.
Cars with 3 - 4 gears force people to raise the RPM to get the car into the next gear , with the 6-7 or 8 speeds you can easily use the next closest gear at your low rpm because they are so close together.

My car could seriously benefit from a final drive upgrade as my 1st gear is super short and my 5th gear is not quite as low as I would like.
A final drive swap will lower my rpm by 250 threw all gears, essential making 1st 2nd and 2nd 3rd , 3rd 4th, 5th will behave as a 6th gear position would.
Like I said my 1st gear is next to useless
My cars model a few years later switched to 6-speeds.

[Frank Lee]

That's actually the situation when I think having more gears is the most helpful. 2nd gear is too long in my car for crawling sometimes, but 1st feels wasteful running the engine at over 1000rpm doing zero work, and continually modulating the clutch to P&G at 5mph is extremely annoying. Also I commonly find the traffic moving at ~10mph, which is barely inaccessible to 3rd gear. The C60 6 speed transmission would give me 3 gears to crawl in instead of 2.

Sounds like a good place for electric drive.

My Beetle has 5 gears and they are all short & quick gears , I can bang threw them from 1st gear to 5th without raising my RPM over 1300.
Cars with 3 - 4 gears force people to raise the RPM to get the car into the next gear , with the 6-7 or 8 speeds you can easily use the next closest gear at your low rpm because they are so close together.

Raise the rpms above that for how long- a second or two?

[Cobb]

If you got a good power band, final drive and outer tire diameter you are set. Otherwise you are going to be like this guy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8lEYaTvvq4g