gears

im putting together the master list of what its going to take to finish my XJ, and im at the gears dilemma. i dont plan on going bigger than 33s, and i would like to keep it 4wd. my rig gets driven to and from the party, so i'd like to keep it streetable.

im looking at 4.56 gears, but what say you desert runners? what is a good ratio for 33s in the sand with an XJ?

i would say 4:88

We were thinking about going to 5.29 on our toyota. Whatever thats worth I guess. I just figured if I didn't really care about highway mpg then its better to put your highest possible speed in the highest rpm you can go. The lower it is the less the engine works to move it and the cooler it"potentially" could be.

Before I threw the 3.4 in our toyota we had a really worn out 3.4 and I was looking for 5.40 or 5.70 gears because I could still go 90mph at redline.

The jeep 4.0 has a good amount of tq though and you could easily get away with not super low gears.

4.56's are good, that is what I run and they do god on the street and off-road. I will probably move up to 4.88's eventually, if I go with 35's

I run 32s and 4.56 and it's just right for street/desert fun.

I run 4.88s, Ax-15, and 35s and they are awesome offroad. Its a little high on the street for as much highway driving as i do but not too bad. If i had the choice between 4.88s and 4.56s, id stick with the 4.88s.

4.88's

Mike, I've ran both 4.88's (allen has them now) and 4.56's, and I like the 4.56's better. Mainly because I like to drive it just about everywhere. With the 4.88's and 33's it hanging out around 3000-3200 in the slow lane, and it would take me and 8 th of a tank to get to work (25 miles or so) Now with the 4.56's and 33's it's alot better, sits right around 2700 on the freeway and I can make the 50+ mile round trip to work and back with just a little over an 8th of a tank. I have yet to run it off road, but I feel it will do just fine. Not to mention I can still lay into it just a little to pass people on the freeway and it doesn't even need to kick down.

I'm thinking like you, I will stay on 33's for a while. If I step it, I might just skip the 35's loose the sheet metal and build something else... with something deeper than a 4.88

thanks for the advice guys, and for the descriptions :cheers:

4.56
Cause of all the reasons the guys up top said!