Hello ht. I have a 97 civic coupe with lsv boosted. This is a fresh block with forged bottomend(JE 9:1 pistons, brian crower rods, acl race bearings). Here is my question. I am running a stock gsr tranny and i love the gearing. Now i have a ls 5th sitting in my shop. I am planning on running a gsr tranny with a ls 5th. Now my friends have been telling me to just go all ls tranny. I am gonna be pushing around 370whp. Which of these setups should i go with. Option 1: Gsr 1-4 + ls 5th w/gsr fd. Option 2: full ls tranny. Option 3: gsr 1-4 w/ls 5th and ls fd. I will one day put lsd in either one of these setups but its just not in the budget atm. Ty for the help

 

Since you already have it, definitely the GS-R gear set over the LS gear set; double synchronized 2nd gear, larger 3rd and 4th synchros on the GS-R gear set, tighter gear spacing.

With only 370whp, you can use either final drive but the 4.4 GS-R final drive would be my choice and maybe use th LS 5th to drop the cruising RPM by 200. If you were making more power then the higher final drive would make sense to keep you out of 5th (assuming you drag race).

 

I do use my car as a dd so a cruising gear is a must and thats why im leaning more towards the 4.266 fd with the ls 5th but keeping 1-4 all gsr

 

i have a gsr 1-4 and ls hydro 5th in my boosted car 2.0L vtec. the drop is pretty decent between 4th and 5th and if you do a lot of driving around 50 mph its really either 3000 rpm in 4th or 2200ish in 5th. that said the gsr 1-4 is nice and with my power level and tire size i run though the traps around 8000 rpm in 4th. The 92-93 cable ls 5th gear is a .742 instead of .787 gsr and .714 ls hydro. its a nice compromise, in fact i just put that 5th gear in my daily driver transmission this week.

if you run the hydro ls 5th on the gsr 1-4 i would certainly keep the 4.4fd. to swap the 4.266 you would need that ls diff as well since the ls/b16 ring gear wont fit a gsr diff.

a straight up ls trans is probably not the best move. if you drag race that longer 4th gear will run you through the traps lower in the rpm and power range. larger tires can counter that, but idk if you planned on buying larger tires...keep that gsr set and add a 5th gear of your choice

 

Smaller tires blackeg, smaller tires will counter a tall gear.

Longer Gears require shorter tires to make a shorter overall setup. Longer Gears with taller tires will only make everything that much longer.

Shorter Gears require taller tires to make a longer overall setup. Shorter gears with shorter tires will only make everything that much shorter.

 

yes you are correct. at 10:13pm i should have just went to sleep instead of internet rambling on. at 370ish whp im not sure how smaller you can really go below a 23" slick which i believe is very similar in size to a 205/50/15 and still enjoy traction without some serious boost by gear ramp up...

i would get on the zeal tranny calculator and mess around with gear ratios and tires size to see what combo fits your goals best