3.9 is a higher ratio than 4.1 (the closer to 1:1 you get, the higher it
is). In general, a lower rear end will give you better acceleration,
but it'll hurt your mileage some. Top speed will be down a tad with a
3.92 vs. a 3.55, but 0-60 will be up some. A lower ratio is preferred
for doing heavy towing, and you also want to look at a lower ratio if
you go to larger tires.
The easiest illustration of what changing your rear end ratio does is to
hop on a bicycle, keep the chain on one gear in the front and work from
the low gears (larger gears, inner-most) to the high gears (smallest,
outermost). Or, keep the chain on the same rear sprocket and move
through the chainrings.
Hoostine wrote:
>
> how do the rear gears relate to power output at the wheels? will a lower
> gear (as in 3.9 is lower than 4.1) ratio give you better gas mileage? how
> do they affect top speed/0-60 speed?
>
> --Hoostine
-- -andyhttp://home.twcny.rr.com/andylevy/ --- andylevy@bigfoot.com ----------------------------------------------------------- Let's all get GNU'd together! -----------------------------------------------------------
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