[John Rogers]

The final drive ratio should be part of the over all gear ratio selection. Generally it depends on what the car will be used for such as a NASCAR Sprint cup car on an oval that hardly ever shifts you want to have a rear end ratio that will peak the RPM/power at the end of the longest straight. For a road race car you want to be able to come out of the corners with maximum acceleration and a gear spread that will allow the car to quickly get to top speed by the next corner. The lower ratio in the given example may feel faster but it is not much lower so probably little real world performance will result. Today's average drivers would never tell the difference.

As an example, my 914-6 race car had stock R&P but two different gear boxes, one was M-S-X the other K-Q-V. When racing the street circuit races in Mexico I put the K-Q-V box in and on at least one corner would have to shift down into 1st gear but the acceleration out of the turns was great. There was a '68 Camaro with a 355 NASCAR detuned engine and he could never catch me unless the straight was really long. He had a stock geared transmission and a 4.11 rear setup.