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I have tried to hold my tongue on this one, but the enthusiasm over this fad is dismaying. The Tranny Trick, I have seen the procedure described several ways, is intended to somehow provide faster or stronger acceleration in the areas where we need it. The notion of a one-shot-cure-all for gear changes, similar to changing the oil or adding a turbo for engines, certainly is alluring; but common sense should prevail. Consider for a moment the logic that the act of winding through the gears, no matter how placed, is essentially a linear process. You start at zero and end at redline in top gear, regardless how tall or short the individual gears are. Now you apply a sweeping change that modifies all ratios uniformly, and want to believe that is somehow superior. You say it improves your quarter mile time? I say you need to do some more experementation. I have seen clear examples racing against a lap ghost where the only change was the application or removal of "the tranny trick" and the unmodified gearbox pulled carlengths ahead. I have also seen examples where lowering the autoset, (which would lower top speed and allow faster acceleration) increased quater mile time; gearing for acceleration is a complicated ratio between hp torque and speed and is something best tackled with MUCH practice, not some smoke and mirrors trick.
You want to talk close ratio? OK, a "close ratio" transmission is one where special compromises have been made. It is assumed, usually to compensate for a high horsepower/low torque motor, that the vehicle will spend most of the time at higher speeds, so the first gear or two are set unusually tall, allowing the remainder of the gears to tightly bracket the powerband. All that remains is to set the final to have the engine top out (redline) at the end of the longest straight and aside from setting individual gears for the exit oomph of key turns, you are good to go with a very competetive tranny, just don't stop too much.
To set your gears up this way in GT4 you must go to the individual gear sliders; you can see on the chart as you change each gears ratio, how the change affects the other ratios. If you set first gear "taller" or "longer", the remainder of the useable range for the other gears becomes "pinched" or shorter. You can then adjust the higher gears so the graph shows them as nice evenly spaced dashes, the goal being to have the low ends of each gear start at the bottom edge of the powerband, with top gear running off the chart through redline.
A high torque motor, like a big V-8, will probably turn low quater mile times with somewhat taller gears, designed to draw upon the extremly long powerband and minimize the acceleration lost to shifting, such a gear box could cross 1000 meters with 3 gears and do it efficiently, while a high revving Ruf might require all six gears to drive the same course...
A GT4 transmission set up this way would have long diagonal dashes with first gear set "for pulling tree stumps", on through the highest rev the motor could pull from, to the next gear (big RPM drop), etc. on to terminal velocity or the gears run out. If your gears are too tall, the engine will lug and falter, too short and you waste valuable hp and time shifting.
None of this can be done by moving an auto-set back and forth, the best that could be accomplished is the possibility that the gear ranges are made more even in relation to each other. The trick has no bearing on where they stand in relation to the powerband, or even if it was better to truncate the taller gears to make them all even. My shoot-from-the-hip guess: sometimes better, sometimes worse.
Now before you slap that reply button, read carefully that I am not soliciting myopic testemonials about how the tranny trick saved your marriage, or averted civil war, or any other tranny trick dogma. I will simply respond that you could have doubled your improvement by massaging your gearbox any other arbitrary way just as likely, did you try any of them to eliminate that most basic argument (and the foundation of scientific study)? I welcome charted results, or even well researched testemonials. Or you can simply agree that there is no "quick fix" for gears. (I think thats what the auto is supposed to be.)
You want to talk close ratio? OK, a "close ratio" transmission is one where special compromises have been made. It is assumed, usually to compensate for a high horsepower/low torque motor, that the vehicle will spend most of the time at higher speeds, so the first gear or two are set unusually tall, allowing the remainder of the gears to tightly bracket the powerband. All that remains is to set the final to have the engine top out (redline) at the end of the longest straight and aside from setting individual gears for the exit oomph of key turns, you are good to go with a very competetive tranny, just don't stop too much.
To set your gears up this way in GT4 you must go to the individual gear sliders; you can see on the chart as you change each gears ratio, how the change affects the other ratios. If you set first gear "taller" or "longer", the remainder of the useable range for the other gears becomes "pinched" or shorter. You can then adjust the higher gears so the graph shows them as nice evenly spaced dashes, the goal being to have the low ends of each gear start at the bottom edge of the powerband, with top gear running off the chart through redline.
A high torque motor, like a big V-8, will probably turn low quater mile times with somewhat taller gears, designed to draw upon the extremly long powerband and minimize the acceleration lost to shifting, such a gear box could cross 1000 meters with 3 gears and do it efficiently, while a high revving Ruf might require all six gears to drive the same course...
A GT4 transmission set up this way would have long diagonal dashes with first gear set "for pulling tree stumps", on through the highest rev the motor could pull from, to the next gear (big RPM drop), etc. on to terminal velocity or the gears run out. If your gears are too tall, the engine will lug and falter, too short and you waste valuable hp and time shifting.
None of this can be done by moving an auto-set back and forth, the best that could be accomplished is the possibility that the gear ranges are made more even in relation to each other. The trick has no bearing on where they stand in relation to the powerband, or even if it was better to truncate the taller gears to make them all even. My shoot-from-the-hip guess: sometimes better, sometimes worse.
Now before you slap that reply button, read carefully that I am not soliciting myopic testemonials about how the tranny trick saved your marriage, or averted civil war, or any other tranny trick dogma. I will simply respond that you could have doubled your improvement by massaging your gearbox any other arbitrary way just as likely, did you try any of them to eliminate that most basic argument (and the foundation of scientific study)? I welcome charted results, or even well researched testemonials. Or you can simply agree that there is no "quick fix" for gears. (I think thats what the auto is supposed to be.)