Thread: how would missing 4th gear affect 1/4 times?

My car lost 4th. 2000 GTP. Its going to the scrap heap because the body is rusting and has too much to fix to make it worth it. Since I was looking at new GTPs and interested in doing some light modding I had a thought about putting some of those simple bolt ons on this car since its not going to matter what happens to it. Just to see how the car reacts or if I can notice any difference. People put cars on CL from time to time with smaller pulleys or headers or different cats on them and cold air intakes and they don't usually mention a tune. When I've asked they say it hasn't had any negative affect on the car but the smaller pulley on the sc does make it go faster. The logical part of my brain says a tune would be best to go with the mods. And with me, the best way I assimilate knowledge and truly understand for practical purposes is to actually do something and experience it besides just reading about it.

So it got me thinking, if a GTP doesn't have fourth gear, how would that affect its quarter time? Would the extra "work" on the engine at those high rpms affect it between say, 55mph-100mph? Will it even go 100 without fourth gear?

BTW, I live in Kansas City area. If I was going to go the tune route I've read its better to have it custom done in the car itself. I was going to just go the 100 dollar route and order a preprogrammed one because I thought it was cheap. About what would it cost to have someone do a custom tune? Is it really worth it for light modding?

My first thought was a 3.5 or 3.6 pulley because it doesn't seem like you have to go very deep for the car to be able to handle it. But I've read people doing the 3.4 with just cai and the custom cat-some with a tune and some without. I don't want to drag the car all the time but it would be cool if it were just a little better than a stock GTP and a little more fun. It would still have to be daily driver.

Sorry if this falls under some other thread. I have read the mod thread a few times, btw. It just introduces more questions for me, really.

it wouldnt. you'll literally never go fast enough to get into fourth.

thanks for the reply. what do you mean "you'll literally never go fast enough to get into fourth?" 4th is supposed to engage somewhere around 60 from my observations. car does 80 now at around 3500 rpm in 3rd.

my gp gt2 does 0 to 50 in first and 50 to 90 in secound and 90 to 111 in 3rd gas to the floor and is governed at 111 and im only doing 5,000 rpm at 111 and normally shift some were between 5,500 and 6,000 rpm and my speedometer goes to 140 so i havnt even hit 4th gear lol im preaty damn sure you will be fine

Originally Posted by Shiftingshaddow

thanks for the reply. what do you mean "you'll literally never go fast enough to get into fourth?" 4th is supposed to engage somewhere around 60 from my observations. car does 80 now at around 3500 rpm in 3rd.

he is talking about you will never hit 4th gear in the qtr mile.

Your pcm is programmed to shift high enough that you won't reach the 4th gear when the throttle is 100%, which you would be at the track.

As for modding w/o tuning. Our pcm's are setup to work in climates from the heat of the equator to the extreme cold at the north/south poles, in all humidty ranges and altitudes (varying levels of oxygen to burn). This gives them the ability to function fairly well with basic mods. A tune however can remove some restriction and dial things in for the conditions you are operating within, this yields more power.

i see. makes sense now. i have never floored it for that long before. in fact, i don't know if i've ever put the pedal all the way down. thanks guys. now i want to try it. and get a ticket.... i always chicken out at 75.

Keep in mind you sais 1/4 mile and I assume you are doing this at a track.

yeah...yeah..cause we'd never speed.

Originally Posted by BillBoost37

Keep in mind you sais 1/4 mile and I assume you are doing this at a track.

yeah...yeah..cause we'd never speed.

i typed 1/4 to kind of put some context or a real application to a hypothetical question or situation because going 0 to 100 as fast as possible on a public road is not generally a practice most people do. i always stop a little over speed limit and i've never floored it all the way to my recollection for an extended amount of time. maybe just a boost but i pull back fast because it accelerates in a hurry. from stop the wheels just spin so i've never mashed it all the way down. so i've always seen the car shift because i guess ive never pushed it that hard before.

Correct...and you are one of the very few people that don't WOT too often.

Originally Posted by BillBoost37

Correct...and you are one of the very few people that don't WOT too often.

I don't know if that's good or bad for my forum cred

im mean to my ride in the past im trying to be alot nicer lol ive done 111 from work to home which is 18 miles i wanted to pop the hood and see something i thought i smelled burning coolant and my exhast was glowing red and this was on a cool cool night so i know ive pushed my car hard but it never over heated when i did those runs if anything my thermastate went down a few notches ive never got a ticket doing that ive had two but those were times i didnt mean to be speeding first was doing 33 over and othere was 28 over i was 78 in a 45(pissed at my ex and hopped in car i speed bad when pissed lol) and the other was 63 in a 35 trying to get to the bank before they closed that ticket the cop like pissed on me with out the decincie of calling it rain lol switched tags, not registered in ks, and 2% tinted windows (bought like that) i got pissed on

lmfao thanks

Bro; I trap 158...

I read this thread and now I have a head ache.

Originally Posted by Shiftingshaddow

I don't know if that's good or bad for my forum cred

It's not a bad thing. We have grocery getters, not race cars.

Today I was trying to wot a little bit and horsing around so instead of just putting it in D and going i put it 1 and 2 and then 3 like a fake manual. It made a difference in accel from dead stop for sure. This might be obvious but I have never really thought about doing that.

But what I stumbled onto when doing this was interesting to me. When you just put the car in D and drive that way it doesn't have 4th, as already stated, but another thing it does is that when you let off the gas the RPMs drop all the way down to 1000 and then when you put your foot back on they jump back up to whatever they should be relative to speed and gear. But when i put the car in 2nd or 3rd manually the rpms didn't drop suddenly when I took my foot off the gas. They slowly went down like the car normally did when it worked correctly.

The reason its significant is that the gas mileage has been horrible. Obvious no 4th so at 70mph it went from 28 mpg to 23mpg. But, to me, that didn't explain around town mileage going down so much. It went from 19-21 down to under 17. I think it was because of the RPMs fluctuating so much--having to go from 1000 rpm to 2000 or 3000 suddenly so often.

I'm thinking of driving it that way to see if it helps the around town gas mileage. Going from 1 to 2 to 3 and just kind of driving it like a manual. Thoughts? If it were a good transmission would this kind of driving be bad for it?

Originally Posted by Shiftingshaddow

Today I was trying to wot a little bit and horsing around so instead of just putting it in D and going i put it 1 and 2 and then 3 like a fake manual. It made a difference in accel from dead stop for sure. This might be obvious but I have never really thought about doing that.

hahahahahhahahhahahahaahha

Shifting it manually made absolutely no difference in the acceleration.