4.88 gears opinion on driveability

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate
links, including eBay, Amazon, Skimlinks, and others.

E

emanting

Joined
May 24, 2016
Threads
68
Messages
241
Location
Lake Orion MI
Hello,

I'm looking at a 200 that has had a 4.88 gear swap. My intent is to drive from Michigan to Alaska. Do the 4.88 gears affect highway cruising?
 
What size tires?
 
Should be perfect.
 
I bought my 200 with 4.88. 6 speed trans.

I’ve put almost 100,000 miles on it.

I’ve had it on 33s and currently 35s.

I have absolutely zero complaints. I wouldn’t have it any other way.
 
With 35's, you'll have *slightly* higher rpm at a given speed than stock tires and gears, but not enough that you'd really notice. 4.88 is the perfect gear set for 35-37" tires. If you plan to keep the 35's, I would consider this perfect. If your goal is a more stock cruiser and you think you'll want to go back to 31-33" tires, then maybe hold out for a different truck. Or if you're handy, you could probably trade+cash for someone's stock diffs.
 
I assume you have a 2008-2015 6-speed cruiser?

You'll be 10% over-geared with 35s, with some requisite efficiency loss, but generally is fine. 4.3s are more ideal and too many subscribe to the more is better. There's a balance.

33s will only make is worse with higher RPM and windage losses. Though aero and tire rolling resistance is a factor too, perhaps more significant to MPG

Here's a reference and tables

TeCKis300

Thread 'Definitive 200-series Gearing Reference'

EDIT: Expanding tables for 8-speed and 40s

So I had a little time this morning to put together a chart combining transmission gearing of 6-speed vs 8-speed, diff ratios, and tire sizing into an overall gearing reference. Hoping this will be useful for those trying to understand how their changes are going to effect overall gearing of the setup.

lc200trannyratios.JPG


EDIT: Adding additional reference info
Few notes:
1) Yellow and Red denote marginal to poor ratios for the setup
2) Even with 37s, the 8-speed first gear gearing is better than the stock 6-speed gearing with 31s!
3) The 8-speed has...
  • Like
 
Ye
TeCKis300 said:
I assume you have a 2008-2015 6-speed cruiser?

You'll be 10% over-geared with 35s, with some requisite efficiency loss, but generally is fine. 4.3s are more ideal and too many subscribe to the more is better. There's a balance.

33s will only make is worse with higher RPM and windage losses. Though aero and tire rolling resistance is a factor too, perhaps more significant to MPG

Here's a reference and tables

TeCKis300

Thread 'Definitive 200-series Gearing Reference'

EDIT: Expanding tables for 8-speed and 40s

So I had a little time this morning to put together a chart combining transmission gearing of 6-speed vs 8-speed, diff ratios, and tire sizing into an overall gearing reference. Hoping this will be useful for those trying to understand how their changes are going to effect overall gearing of the setup.

lc200trannyratios.JPG


EDIT: Adding additional reference info
Few notes:
1) Yellow and Red denote marginal to poor ratios for the setup
2) Even with 37s, the 8-speed first gear gearing is better than the stock 6-speed gearing with 31s!
3) The 8-speed has...
  • Like
Click to expand...
Yes, looking at purchasing a 2013. I'm concerned with increased highway noise due to higher RPM as my wife is going with me. Dont want to substitute one drone for another:)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Share this page

Back
Top Bottom