Hi All,

I have an '07 Type S and feel the car would be much faster with different gear ratios. I think 1st, 2nd, 3rd and even 4th are too short. (ie need to shift at a speed lower than a taller gear ratio). I still drive a 2nd Gen Taurus SHO and third gear pulls past 95. Are other ratios availabe? I do have an issue with the 3rd gear pop out, althought it is not too bad and I haven't changed to the GM fluid.
Thanks

 

First thing first, u should of changed out the tranny fluid once u knew about it so u dont mess up ur 3rd anymore..

as for the low end torque..thats how the gearing ratio is.. u cant really do anything about it..u have to remember this is a SOHC not a DOHC motor..

But what u can do is start doing mods..first mod i would do is a UR pulley..

 

^+1

UR pulley. Also take off the bumper and remove the L-shaped air silencer. Its all the extra intake tubing going into your bumper. It's totally unecessary.

And props on the SHO. I had a 91' for awhile. They are total sleepers

 

While Acura likes to advertise that the manual transmission is a close ratio box, that is not true because the spread between first and second gears is fairly wide. Here are the ratios for the '05 which I'm pretty certain are the same for the other 3G TL manuals.

1st - 3.93
2nd - 2.48
3rd - 1.70
4th - 1.25
5th - 0.98
6th - 0.77
Final drive - 3.29

As you can see, the final drive ratio is quite high (tall) but first and second (especially first) are rather low (short). Our engines do not produce that much torque so you wouldn't want too tall of a gear.. you need to take advantage of the torque which is available. The result with taller gears would be slower acceleration and more clutch wear.

 

drive the automatic version you will see the difference having one gear less. Im not sure what the exact gear ratio is on a automatic.... i was told it would be similar but after having my 04 tl mt traded for a 05 AT i felt a big loss in torque and also lets say 3gear mt pulled almost as 2nd AT.

 

Thought I'd throw this out as I had some time to kill.
Just as a comparision:
Manual.......5 A/T....'07 5A/T
1st - 3.93...2.563...2.70
2nd -2.48...1.552...1.61
3rd - 1.70...1.021...1.07
4th - 1.25......666.....69
5th - 0.98......480.....49
6th - 0.77
Final drive - 3.293..4.428..4.31

However the overall ration
1st -12.84/11.358/11.647
2nd- 8.17/6.87/6.94
3rd - 5.59/4.52/4.61
4th - 4.12/2.95/2.97
5th - 3.23/2.13/2.11
6th - 2.54

As you can see the M/T has quite a lower overall ratio in each gear selected for more grunt.

 

Thanks for the info. I do need to change out the fluid. Sounds like I'll be looking into the pulley and intake. Any warranty issues with the two mods?

 

i have both for a long time now and no issues whatsoever. To be honest those two modes are probably two of the best ones for the money.

 

I have an 06 MT and I find 1st gear to be way too tall. I would like 1st gear to allow me to break the tires loose from a rolling start. When I start out in first, I feel that the car is a bit weak, but then as the RPM's climb, I begin to smile.

I would then want second to be higher in ratio as well.

Since I don't race my car, I wish the first 5 gears were bunched close together and 6th to be even taller. Feeling more powerful is more important to me than actually being more powerful.

My previous car was an 05 Volvo S80 with a 2.5L light-pressure turbo and it does 0-60 in 7.9 seconds. That car could peel-out from a rolling start and whenever I punched it, I felt like I could fly around traffic. It was like jumping into hyperspace. I definitely do not feel this power in my TL even though it supposedly does 0-60 in 6 seconds. Maybe I have to get used to the narrow power band of high-revving engines and shift more often.

And I find 6th not tall enough.

Check out 6th in some Corvettes. 0.56:1! Now that's tall! But of course, their huge engines have the torque to drive such a ratio.

 

well lack of low-end torque.... u answered it yourself. Every honda engine feels lazy.

 

I guess that's the trade off to high RPM horsepower.

Does it feel that way only because of the torque curve or does it actually not have that much torque?

This probably why muscle cars are popular.

The LT1 Camaro was rated at 275HP and I'm sure if that 5.7L engine were in the TL, it'd be a totally different beast.

But there must be a point to where you can add enough gear ratios to close the gap. 12-gears maybe? Or a CVT.

 

Low end torque is amazing to have! having 12 gears would be like shifting an 18 wheeler, ton's of work!!! 6 Gears should be good enough, its not like you are going to be going over 100 every day and you need to have gearing to get from 110 to 140 in a few seconds rather than say 20 seconds. The TL 6MT's 6th gear can safely have the same ratio as the 5AT's 5th gear as going under that would be dangerous to the point of causing stalling.

 

I do all my driving below 70 mph so I'd like my gears to serve me in that range.

Maybe have 1st top-out at 30, 2nd at 60, 3rd at 80...

Then I'd like the RPM's at 60 to be around 1750? Whatever gives the best efficiency.

Stalling? I can use 6th when I'm going 40. I'm not sure I understand your concern.

 

Actually, first gear is quite short, no where near tall at all, with a 3.93:1 ratio. I can break traction all the way through first gear in my '04 manual from a roll if I hit it at around 2500 RPM. And you don't want a higher second gear (2.48:1), because that would increase the ratio spread between first and second - not a good thing. Maybe what you really meant here was a lower second gear.

 

Question- on the manuals, shifting at redline of course, will it stay in the vtec range in every gear or is there too big of a gap in some gears?

I would love to see a true close ratio 5 speed with 6th as an overdrive.

 

Your Vovlo was turbo charged, that's why you "felt" like it was quicker. I shift gears very often on my TL, it's smooth and very rev happy

Wait...40mph and in 6th gear??? Doesn't that strain your trany/clutch??

 

I don't want to have to break traction by dropping the clutch because as soon as traction is broken, you have less traction.

And it's because of the lower traction (kinetic friction) that allows you to spin the tires in 1st.

If the tires aren't spinning, you can take advantage of the higher coefficient of static friction.

Yeah, I meant a gear with a higher numerical ratio to match the lower 1st gear.

 

The purpose of VTEC is to enable the engine to produce more horsepower than it could without the valve modifications.

Going into VTEC is not like turning your engine into a different beast. It's allowing the beast to breathe at higher rpm's.

If you look at the dyno charts for the TL, you can see that it is smooth all the way up to peak horsepower. There's no sudden increase in power when VTEC kicks-in.

So any way you look at it, if you're not at peak horsepower, you're not using all the power your engine can make.

That's why having more gear ratios helps you accelerate more quickly. You can keep your engine closer to peak horsepower.

Whether you're in VTEC or not doesn't make any difference.

 

Yeah, that turbo helped the engine produce peak torque beginning at 1500 rpm.

As long as your clutch isn't slipping, you're not breaking anything. I'm sure the tranny can handle the TL's engine with no sweat at all.

The only things I worry about are the synchronizers and the clutch. When you're not shifting, the synchronizers aren't doing anything. If your clutch isn't slipping, your clutch is fine.

 

The goal is to not drop out of vtec rpm range when racing. What I was wondering is if the TL like some other Honda products have too large of a drop from one gear to another where it falls out of vtec on an upshift at redline.

Looking at the graphs you can see when vtec kicks in. Not only that but you can feel it too.

 

It would strain the engine more than the trans. I doubt it's making more than 80hp at that rpm in 6th. As long as it's not under a lot of load at those low rpms it's ok but it's not good to put the pedal to the floor with very low rpms.

 

If u redline..ecu automatically cut fuel so u dont hit the limiter..

when u shift u are at about 5000 rpm, so right out of vtec

 

I was looking at a couple dyno charts from an old post and it seems like the curve is pretty smooth.

post 104 in the link below

https://acurazine.com/forums/showthr...o+chart&page=3

post 134 in the link below

https://acurazine.com/forums/showthr...o+chart&page=4

Maybe it's just me, but I don't notice anything different all the way up to redline.

My friend used to have a VTEC controller in his Prelude and in the Prelude, the VTEC engagement RPM is definately too high.

I don't know if the TL already does this or not, but it'd be great if VTEC engaged at the optimal RPM depending on how much throttle you're giving the engine. Like if you were flooring it, it'd switch over as soon as gains could be realized. Then when you're not flooring it, it'd delay engagement to save fuel.

 

iono about the base, but the type-s know whens u want to go into vtec.

say...u throttle halfway up to 5k rpm ..it will stay out of VTEC unless u floor it.
That way it doesnt run into vtec if u dont want to..

but dam everytime u hit vtec..u jus watch your gas go down half bar