atmotocrosser
Well-Known Member
- First Name
- Greg
- Joined
- Feb 11, 2019
- Threads
- 6
- Messages
- 73
- Reaction score
- 64
- Location
- Georgetown, TX
- Vehicle(s)
- 23 JLR 6MT
- Occupation
- Motorcycle Sales & Finance
Thank you for the write up.I just got back from two weeks in Colorado and Utah in the 2-door manual on 4.88s and 37" K02s. I did Red Cone, Black Bear Pass, Imogene Pass, Fins and Things, Hell's Revenge, Poison Spider, Top of the World, Elephant Hill, and a couple others I'm probably forgetting.
For people wondering about manual + 4.88 + 37s:
-Highway driving with this setup does indeed suck at high elevation and/or on steep grades. 5th and 6th gears are distant memories in these situations. 4th actually worked very well for passing and maintaining speed in a lot of cases, but I frequently needed third to maintain progress up hills. You're going to be working a lot. If I lived in an area like this, and was dead set on 37s with a manual, there's no doubt I would want 10-20% deeper gearing for quality of life purposes.
-Slow, technical rock crawling is still very, very good on 37s, thanks to how short 1st gear is. It's absolutely not a chore to start out in the middle of a tough obstacle with the Jeep sitting at a precarious angle. You can easily two-foot drive at idle with the clutch and brake to crawl and then subsequently hold yourself on obstacles.
-That said, for the toughest/steepest slow obstacles, there were still plenty of situations were I wanted a little slower crawl speed and a little more wheel torque in 1st gear. This was easily done by leaving the clutch partially/half engaged while you climb a ledge or negotiate an obstacle at idle. While I found this easy to do, and it wasn't abusive to the clutch, it's definitely a case where 10-20% deeper gears would make things a little easier.
-On 37s I found myself kind of 'between gears' in certain situations. First would be simply too slow, while second didn't give quite enough wheel torque at low RPMs, mandating you keep the RPMs and speed a little higher than you'd ideally like. There were a lot of situations where I found myself thinking that shorter gearing would allow 2nd gear to be more useful in more slow/technical situations.
Overall, this setup on the 37s is "perfectly usable", and I'm very happy with it, but it's "not ideal". IMO 5.13 or 5.38 would allow
-First to crawl a tad slower for the absolute toughest obstacles
-Second to be much more useful in more low-speed situations
-Much better manners at high altitudes
Hope this helps anyone considering 37s.
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