Which gears should I use for going up hills?

[Fast Fords]

haha i've hit the limiter..and the check engine light came on i regularly shift at 5,500 and i HAVE hit 6,000 rpm a few times...my truck still runs great!

but down shifting is the only way to get up the hills with a 4 cyl ranger with 100 hp lol ya just gotta do it. i can make it up a few hills in 4th then hold 'er in 5th but these are hills you wouldn't notice in a v6..i regularly shift to 3-4 to overcome the big ones..

 

[fastpakr]

I'm unsure of all of your responses of downshifting guys.
1st gear goes to 20mph max
2nd gear goes to 35mph max
3rd gear goes to 45mph max
4th gear goes to 65mph or so
5th gear is a joke. Just for cruising.

I want to go faster up the hills not down shift. Thats the problem.
I can floor the pedal in 3rd no problem but if I floor the pedal in 4th it loses all power. I just don't want to floor the gas in third all the time. I'm afraid of engine trouble spinning it to high heaven like that.

What gears do you currently have? I can push through 50mph in 2nd without batting an eye. You are not even close to generating peak power at those shift points.

 

[RangerFabWorks]

they MIGHT be close, if he already has incredably deep gearing with tiny little tires. in which case changing the R&P gear ratio isnt going to help.



then youve never reached your engines peak power. these engines need to spin, and worrying about hurting them by doing so is like worrying about drowning a fish by putting it in the lake.

these trucks are all equipped with electronic rev limiters to protect the engine from over revving. if you havnt hit it at least once, you arent driving your truck properly.

with 27" tires, 3.45 gearing, 3rd gear, at 35 MPH your engine is turning just 2300 RPM...your engine makes almost NO power this low. downshift to second, this changes your final gearing from 5.2:1 in 3rd to 7.6:1. by contrast, 4.10 ring and pinion gearing in 3rd gear only gives you 6.2:1 final gearing.

yeah heres the difference. im carbed, you guys are efi. so i would be scared as piss reving my engine that high. i would think i would bend a valve or something. but i just might have to try it.

 

[fastpakr]

?

Having a carb vs. efi doesn't make a bit of difference in reliability of the mechanicals of the engine.

 

[ILLEGALCONCEPTS]

Ok, for the OP, the 4.10's made a huge difference in my truck. I cruise around in 3rd and 4th gear alot and can actiually use 5th to cruise highway speeds. So yes, a gear swap will help put what little power these trucks make to the ground. You will be shifting a good bit more on take off as you will run through the gears faster. Your speedo will be off and you'll need to figure out the right spedo gear or learn to live with it. I havn't changed mine yet, I really don't dribve the truck as much as I use to so...

The hydro cams are good til about 7200RPM and then valve float sets in. IIRC the mech cams are good til some where around 8K. When the time comes, I will do some computer mods and set my redline at 7200RPM. My head and intake manifold have been worked over and I will have a custom intake manifold before years end. I am not afraid to wind this motor out, I've seen its guts after spending most of its life getting beat on and they looked just fine.

I've never seen my check engine light come on when I hit the rev limiter.....odd. Maybe something else went out of specs to trip it.

James

 

[Rico]

Okay I was able to find out a couple things today. I called my Dad to tell me what the sticker on the door says and I have the open 7.5" diff and 3.45 gears in it. So I went to a junkyard today and found a B2 that has a limited slip diff with 4.10 gears. Many thanks to our technical page. So I'll be crunching some numbers today and see where the engine rpms will be with that set up.

 

[fastpakr]

It's still not going to make the truck able to run a higher speed up a hill. If you put the transmission in the correct gear now, you'll accomplish the same thing going up the hill. The major difference is in power immediately off the line in first gear and how close you can keep it to peak power at any given time. The problem here, however, is that you're shifting the truck incorrectly to begin with. A gear swap won't magically help with that.

Don't get me wrong - I prefer 4.10's over 3.45's every day of the week for most applications. The problem is that you haven't learned how to use the gears you have, and if you're going to be shifting far too early with 3.45's, you'll only make the problem worse with shorter gearing.

 

[valleyvinyl84]

yeah heres the difference. im carbed, you guys are efi. so i would be scared as piss reving my engine that high. i would think i would bend a valve or something. but i just might have to try it.

WOAH! I live in PA, I'm carbed, I have a 2.0 and I have no problem with hills in my state and trust me there are tons of hills around me. I usually pull 45 doing uphill in 3rd or if I wean it out to peak 70some horses at 4,000 RPM I go 55, uphill.

 

[Rico]

So are you guys telling me that my ranger won't go faster than 45mph uphill even if a put in lower gears? Am I doomed not to be able to drive past 45 mph? Putting the engine inside another power band I always thought should make it faster.(In the low end of things not top speed. Let's not get into that discussion.)

Also I'm confused about how you can go that fast in third. My transmission has a granny first gear maybe everybody else's doesn't. Believe me when I tell you the max speed for each gear and that I'm not shifting too early because the engine hits the rev limiter every time I shift. That's just the way I use it.

 

[fastpakr]

Your transmission categorically does NOT have a granny gear. Do you have a tach?

 

[Rico]

No tachometer, yet. I think I ought to get one now after all of this.

 

[valleyvinyl84]

I do have the stock 5 speed, I forget what it's called, but I'll take you for a ride next time you're in PA if ya don't believe me. As for fifth gear being useless I would also have to disagree, I can accelerate pretty good on the highway with it, not setting any speed records but I don't expect a N/A 2.0 to do that.

Note: I do have a tach, so the RPM's are correct.

 

[fastpakr]

No tachometer, yet. I think I ought to get one now after all of this.

You should be able to grab an instrument cluster out of a same year Exploder in the junkyard to get a tach and make it look OEM. The whole thing just swaps straight over. That's what I've got in mine.

 

[Rico]

Thank you for the Explorer tach tip. I like that idea better than those ricer monster tachs.

 

[fastpakr]

Any time. I wouldn't want one of those either, but I'm pretty adamant about having a tach in any manual trans vehicle.