Reinen
Well-Known Member
As others have said, it changes the amount of rotations of the driveshaft to turn the wheel one rotation. On a Jeep, this is primarily done to give the engine more leverage to turn larger tires. A larger tire will move the vehicle further with 1 rotation, so adding larger tires and lowering the gearing ratio will return the engine RPM to Distance/Speed ratio closer to stock.I'm kind of a newbie with the gearing ratio. With a strong risk of looking completely stupid, what does it change, exactly?
This isn't the only reason to change the gearing ratio. In contrast, my little brother had a GTO with a lowered gear ratio and stock tire size. This made his 0-60 time insanely fast and he could leave rubber on the road at will in any gear. However, his lowered gear ratio also meant he couldn't go faster than 65-70 on the highway without redlining his RPMs. It was a weird car to drive.
So, hilariously, my old YJ could win a race against his GTO if the distance was long enough and on a highway.
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