Low numeric 3.x Crown wheel and pinion option
Posted: Wed Jul 18, 2012 11:10 am
There seems to be way too much talk of 5 and 6 speed gearboxes that can be "substituted" for the excellent shifting stock 4 speed that has it's gears spaced well whether its a 2.97 semi-close or the Ultra-close 2.51 ratio version, there is even the poorly spaced Cortina box that has the 3.54 first with a well placed 2.39 second and the cliff dropping third of 1.41 to:1 to be had. What I am getting at is a custom cut 3.1 to 3.25 ratio for the ring and pinion to get something like a 10% reduction over the 3.55/3.54 that is th best highway gear offered now. There are quite a few 1700cc engines that would pull smartly with this kind of gear reduction, it may not be well suited to the lardy plus 2, but for a Elan 1600 to Sprint with the bigger displacement, it would solve a lot of bullshit of the installation of another box and all of the associated nonsense of a gearbox swap and make a quite simple R & P change that would only require a driven speedometer gear change to compensate for the change. I have mentioned this before and it got no responce and I would think that today it will recieve about the same reaction. I see the bigest problem is finding 10 to 20 folks that would like to go this route and put up the money to get it done. My guess is less than $500 would get a Low numeric R & P in your hand verse the cost of the 5/6 speed box. I think I am missing something but not sure of what the resitance of this approach is. Yes it's a slow mornning on elan.net and its already in the mid 80's here so I guess its time to go and sand some putty I spread just before I started to write this question.
Gary
Gary