914 Gears sets Ill # 303-00

If the gearing is not made progressive and the initial shifts are spaced too closely time is lost as each upshift with a synchronizer transmission loses about a half of a second and each downshift loses three quarters of a second. So if the lower gearing is too short then you are wasting time making shifts from one "granny" gear to the next "granny" gear. As the car approaches 60 MPH it is covering about a hundred yards a second. The car with the longer initial gearing has only made one shift to get to 60 MPH and has only made one shift that wIll only cost him 40 or fifty yards in rolling distance. The "Granny" gear car has made two shifts with each losing about a half a second each and thus losing about 100 yards in rolling distance. The engine of the car with the longer initial gearing is also not struggling to "pull" or overcome the taller gearing with torque and the shift RPM drops are getting progressively shorter and this car is driving away from "Granny". So the gearing may be made longer or shorter depending on the desired top speed one wants to reach but the shape of the gear graph must remain to look like the half of a Christmas tree.