Downshifting!?

[Will]

I have a 96 a4 and i do still have the 3.08 gears so i hope when i go to 3.42 and get tuning this will be better. If i am doing 40 and punch it the car pulls good in high rpms. Anything higher than that when i nail it all mit does is shift to 5,000rpm then as soon as it does it shifts to about 3,000 and pulls real slow. I cant get any power on top end cuz if im going over 45 and nail it it will onyl downshift once and i will be pulling from 3500 or so. Does anyone else have this problem? Is it cuz of the 3.08 gears? will 3.42's and tuning fix it? thanks.

[2000camarostud]

what i would guess the "problem" is is that when you are going 40mph and punch it, the car is able to downshift into a lower gear because the RPMs arent as high, leaving you room to accelerate in that lower gear before needing to shift. When you go faster, the tranny is past the point of being able to shift into that lower gear because the rev is too high and you would hypothetically be at redline if able to downshift, which is unsafe and could cause major problems, so it downshifts into the next gear up, which is why you're left at 3500 rpms. I'm not quite sure if the 3.42's will fix that problem, although when the tranny downshifts, it may be at higher RPMS, because the lower gear ratio will make you run at higher RPM's than you do now. And you obviously will accelerate much quicker with the new gears. I'm hoping i'm right on that one, not an expert of automatic transmissions, but from what i understand, that is what is happening.

[mjparme]

I believe the general consensus is that there is a dead spot on our cars from about 45-60 mph. Gears and custom tuning helps this out a lot.

[95Batmobile]

Gears technically help, but all they really do is move your "dead spot" to a lower speed.

My dead spot its to be about 35-50mph with my 3.23 gears. That is right when my car shifted into 2nd, at 35mph. Now with 3.73s it shifts at about 30mph and my "dead spot" is from about 30-40.

[i_love_my_maro]

Originally posted by 95Batmobile:
Gears technically help, but all they really do is move your "dead spot" to a lower speed.

My dead spot its to be about 35-50mph with my 3.23 gears. That is right when my car shifted into 2nd, at 35mph. Now with 3.73s it shifts at about 30mph and my "dead spot" is from about 30-40.

but the dead spot is getting smaller