gear+tire ?

Pretty straight forward question will 3.73's suck with 33" tires, mine has the auto in it. I know on my YJ,with a 5sp, 4.10's and 33's was a lil much for highway driving. After looking at a couple of different gear/speed/rpm calulators it didn't seem like the 3.73 would be too bad, but I am looking for real world expirience. I have not got the tires yet so I could drop down a size but I'd rather not.

Any input appreciated

Thanx, Jason

 

I forgot I also plan on hopping up the engine HEI, intake, 4brl, headers, and a cam, if that matters.

 

Mine is a stocker so not much help here, but heres a chart from the other site for jeepsters, if no good answeres here post on it akso.....http://www.americanjeepsterclub.org/tech/c101tire.shtml

post in the build section so the cj crowd can see it better there kinda goes for any jeep

cheers
Tony

 

I have 33" tires on my CJ and started out with the 5.38:1 ratio.While this had excellant low speed abilities I was a rolling roadblock because I would'nt go faster than 40 mph without the engine screaming for mercy. I switched to 3.73:1 axles and I had just the oppisite,I had to drive in second gear if I wanted to cruise in high range at speeds below 30-35 mph as it tended to bog the engine down in 3rd(3 speed tranny). I finally went to 4.27:1 ratio and I like it a lot,I dont usually drive much more than 45mph but I can if I need to, and the low speed abilities are acceptable for the trails/dunes that I drive on. What kind of driving do you plan on; trails,cruising for fun or commuting,highway,daily driver?Seems like a hopped up V-6 would be fine with the 3.73:1 and 33" tires but it probably will depend on what you want to use it for.For what its worth my 33" actually measure 33 1/2" tall mounted on 10 wide rims and with the weight of the JEEP resting on it ,I know that some 33" are not really that tall when there mounted and have weight on them.

 

Thanx for responses.

Tony I did check the chart on the jeepste site, and wasn't sure what to think because they really didn't say anything about the tranny. Maybe that doesn't matter though.

Oz, I do plan on driving it on the road and will have to drive it back and forth between runs, most of which are at least a half hour highway drive. As fo my "run" tendancies, I will mostly be running trails and obstacle courses with a light sprinkling of rocks in the mix. The club I am in has most of this stuff on our property, and the other areas are mostly trails. I believe the tires I am looking at are actually spec'd out at 32.8"

 

My old CJ7 used to be auto and I changed it to manual when the tranny blew. Well the gears were 2.72 and I drove that with 33s for a couple years before I changed the gears. Yeah 33s and 2.72 sucked. You definitely couldn't just dump the clutch.

Anyways I ended up later with 4.11 gears and 35" tires.
This worked out nicely for me as I could do 60-65 on the highway and still never had any issues on the trail. At 65 on the highway my 258 sure sounded like it was screaming though. ~3000RPM. For the low end I have the T-150/D20 combo which is also one of the worst crawl ratios around.

It definitely depends on what you want it for. How hard core are you ?
Hope this helps some.

 

HARD CORE!? that's funny, seriously my 2 boys (10 & 3) and I mainly like the trails and stuff. Although when I'm alone and with fellow club members I can be swayed into doing more. I am pretty new to the whole wheeling thing, the last few years, so I don't get too crazy. Plus where I'm at about all we got is trails and some man made stuff at my clubs property.

 

4.10s would be preferable to 3.73 with the 33s. I run 4.56 with my 35s and it runs good.

 

I hate the 3:73's in my 67.

 

Are any of u guys running after market torque converters, now that I have driven it a lil I think the TC is a bigger issue than the gears. I think I may stick with the gears and swap out the TC.