l3.73 quick question

[jc Kyle]

I know that going from my 308s to 373s will kill my speedo and hurt my gas milage. My question is, if I reprogram the pcm to accept this, will the driveability be a little better? Will I not top out at such a low speed and not be at horrid rpms on the highway? Also, I plan on being turbocharged this spring, will I be running at lower rpms at the same speed I am now when my turbo is in? Just curious cuz if these gears are gonna just hurt my car, I'll go for 342s, but I would rather have the increased acceleration during the turbo lag.. thx

[AlienInv8r]

theoretically they can still pull all the way to about 130mph. I've heard different sides of the story with each. Some people say 0-60 is lightning fast, and then they just fall flat on their face; others say they pull well to over 100 quicker, and this usually comes from the people who have them. Accerleration in 1st and 2nd is going to be so quick that it feels like 3rd and 4th dont pull anymore, but in reality you will be pulling harder through each gear.

The only thing getting reprogrammed will change is your speedo and shift points if you're an A4 as far as the gear aspect of that is concerned. Most people I've asked say they cruise 70mph at about 2500rpms, so figure your highway revs to be between 2500-3000rpms. I really really want to 3.73s myself, but since 75-80% of my driving is highway I'm reluctant to get them. But if you're not on the highway all the time like me, I'd go for em. They'll supposedly "feel" like a 40-something HP increase due to the torque multiplication.

[Riles]

I went to 3.73's, and I do a whole lot of highway driving- I live in New Jersey and goto school in Indiana.

I gained gas mileage- it went up about 3 mpg when i swapped the gears in, and went up another 2-3 with the supercharger.

For some reason, i used to have some pretty bad mileage, but I finally get about 30 mpg on the highway.

3.73's really dont effect highway driving, unless you have a very loud exhaust.

[Devilboy28]

I have 3.73 gears and I love them. I do a fair amount of highway driving as well. You WON'T loose much MPG if any at all. The RPMs on the highway stay around 2400-2600 so that isn't problem either. The only thing I hate is my speedo is out of whack.