Okay, read the following poem. Laugh if you want...

Did you laugh? Well, that there poem won me a $750 ATS Final Drive Gear set in the 2nd annual Honda-Tech Poetry Contest. Who's laughing now, sucko!

First off, insanely huge thanks to David at R&D Motorsports, the killer online shop that hosts the poetry contest and donates the absolutely phenomenal prizes (even the smallest prizes are trick Spoon parts and stuff). While I do fancy myself a writer by trade, poetry has never been my thing, and though I was hoping for maybe a radiator cap or something cool, I was totally blown away when I won the grand freakin prize. A friend of mine (who is an excellent poet and writer) commented that I had probably made more money with that little ditty than any other poet he knows...so I guess I should add "Professional Poet" to my resume. But don't count on it. On to the stuff that really matters:

The Final Drive Gear is what all your other gears interface with before the power from your engine goes to the wheels. The higher the number, the shorter the final drive. With a shorter final drive, each of the 5 gears (and reverse) are affected, in this case the top speed of each gear is lowered, but each gear spools up to redline quicker. Think of it this way: 2nd gear is a little more like 1st gear than it was before, 3rd gear a little more like 2nd, and so on. The stock final drive in a Type R is 4.400. The JDM Final drive (what Matt has) is 4.785. The ATS gear I got is 4.929. This is pretty damn short. Here's the breakdown for max speeds at 8600 RPM in each gear, and the RPM that the shift to the next gear will drop you to:

So basically, I've gone from having a drag limited top speed that I'd probably never hit (not at any roadcourses around here, and flooring it on the highway, while sometimes amusing, is just too risky), to a pretty damn quick top speed that the car will get to in a relative hurry. Since i was hitting 130 at VIR's insanely long striaght with stock gearing, I can definately see the potential for getting near redline in 5th gear at a few of the more stretched out courses.

In daily driving, the car fairly rips. If you saw my Road Trip post, you know I drove down to Orlando to see Matt and get the drive installed....we decided that "Rips" is about the best word for a Type R with an ATS FD. It just rips. You quickly get used to being about 1000 RPM higher than you were before in most gears...4th is a great cruising gear for anything above 30 MPH, 2nd works pretty good for starting the car if you're just too lazy to pick 1st, and when you get on it the sun'mbitch just MOVES. At Summit Point Raceway, I had lots of fun, and the gearing was well suited to the track. This is not a bolt-on, maybe add 2 horsepower mod. This is a get in there and make some serious changes mod. This is a mod that can do nothing but make your car quicker. It makes more use of the power you have, whatever it is. It's like reducing weight: It just rocks. HIGHLY recommended for those with the cajones. Sure, you might loose 1 or 2 MPG and you'll be at around 5000 RPM at 80 in 5th, but you know what? IT RIPS.

Some Pix of the install, thanx also go out to FL Dave for the help on the first night with dropping the tranny etc...you and Matt just tore through that sucker why I stood in awe (granted, after 12 hours on the road I would have been in awe of some guy microwaving popcorn, but still....)

Mmm...Box from ATS....so dense with goodness.

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You see that japanese writing? You know what that says? It says "Drive down to Florida and have Matt install this." That's what it says.

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Matt, sporting a haircut that's practical for working on cars no matter how Fight Club it is, wrenches on something.

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It's hard to take a pic south of the carolinas without these strange birds appearing...

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you drain the MTF.

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you get everything that needs to come out, out.

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Take out the axel...

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you pull the tranny.

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you put the tranny on the floor and comment on Matt's sweet ass gloves. Burned to tha ground.

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This is entirely too put together.

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So we take it apart too.

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That is just sweet.

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Point to 4th gear!

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Now wipe those fingerprints off your monitor!

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tasty.

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A peek at the clutch while the tranny is out of the way...

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The final drive gear, ATS style.

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This is a gear, son.

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swap the FD gears...

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Another perspective on that.

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The rest of the goodies that come with ATS (countershaft, countershaft 1st gear, needle bearing, distance collar)

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shiny!

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JDM bubble wrap...wonder if i could sell that on Ebay.

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Make sure you keep track of stuff.

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this needs just one more thing....

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aah yes, the BFH makes its apperance.

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Pop 'er back up in there, put everything back together, and you're done! (Now, that would be in theory...in actuality, i took my first test drive and it was all seeming good, but we discovered the axel was not in the whole way and MTF was leaking...so Matt summoned his we-todd-did skillz and used a sharp piece of wood to tear the inner CV boot, so we went to "The CV Joint" in Orlando and got that fixed for $15 bucks in about 10 minutes (an awesome deal), then the next day just cruising around the bolt that holds the shifter extension rod to the tranny decided to make it known that it had not been torqued down, so a little scavenger hunting on the main drag in Orlando and some torquing, and it's all butter now.)

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And this what you get used to seeing in 5th gear!

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