Today I took a test drive in an R/T and was very impressed. The sales associate said that the car's speed is electronically limited and I was wondering how much it would cost to take this off?

My second question comes from the dodge wesbite. While messing around with an R/T configuration, I noticed this:

2.82 Axle Ratio

And the dropdown box says this:

"A numerically lower axle ratio results in lower engine rpm and better fuel economy. A numerically higher ratio improves acceleration, climbing grades, carrying loads or pulling a trailer."

Well, from comparing other cars it seems that 2.82 is really low, so I was wondering how much would it cost to get it "tuned" to something a lot higher? Or is that not possible? If this is stupid question and/or I got my facts wrong I apologize, I don't know anything about cars.

Any help is greatly appreciated, thank you.

An aftermart tuner will take care of the speed limiter for you. As far as the rear gear goes, no one has come out with a replacement yet. The word is it will be soon.

__________________
Don
Magnum RT
Live Well, Love Much, Laugh Often

No one is making different ratio's for the rear ends yet...in axle speak, 2.82 is "high"
where as a 3.90 is considered "low"

That's right. I like a 3.73/1 for all around performance. With a 1/1 transmission you turn 3000 rpm at 60 MPH. I think back in the '70s they put 3.73 in manual transmissions and 3.55 in muscle cars with automatics. But with todays transmissions things are way different and the higher ratios work good for excelleration and then the OD and locking converters help with the gas milage.

I read that there are 2 different ratios you can get from factory but I'm not sure what the requirements are.

I have not found new gears for my Magnum yet but as a comparison:

The guys with C5 vettes and auto trans upgraded to 3.42 gears

Us 6spd drivers went from 3.42's (stock) to 3.90's and my favorite 4.10's


If I could find something around 3.42 for my Magnum and a flash to fix my speedo I would be all over it. Gear swaps are the best "bang for the buck" bar none as far as perf upgrades go.

According to this page http://www-5.dodge.com/vehsuite/VehicleCompare.jsp There are 4 different differential gear ratios.

3.90 for the SE and SXT RWD
3.07 for the SXT and RT AWD
2.82 for the RT RWD
3.06 for the SRT8 RWD

I'm wondering how hard it would be to interchange the Ring and Pinion? Are the housings different? Doesn't seem logical to make different rear housings for the same body style.

So maybe the 3.07 for the SXT/RT AWD or the 3.06 for the SRT8 might work. Or if you had enough money just put the whole housing and all from the SRT8 under your RT. It would give you a better jump from the start but shouldn't be noticably harder on gas. And if you do a lot of stop and go city driving theoretically could be better.

3.90's probably a bit to tall for the auto trans in my R/T but the 3.07's sound interesting...would really prefer someting at least in the 3.20's though.

I also see a limited slip diff available which would be real nice. http://estore.websitepros.com/802805/Detail.bok?no=859

This artical makes me think the cars with hemis have a different rear housing, since it only fits the "hemi" cars. Though that wasn't done in the days of old anything is possible. It seems to me it would have been more cost effective to have all the rear housings the same with different ratios for the ring and pinion for the different power plants.

Who knows? I still can't find much info on component specifications.

I too think 2.82 is pretty tall. However, in my 04 Ram 1500 hemi I had the 3.90 gears with the auto and to my surprise the Magnum is way quicker than the Ram and my Ram was a standard cab, short wb with 17" rims also. I notice transmission gear ratios for the Magnum has a MUCH LOWER first gear than the Ram. I pull a 2800 pound utility trailer with both veichles and the Magnum could out run the Ram easily with the same trailer on back. Also the Ram got 12mpg highway with the trailer on and 19 without. the Magnum gets 16 with the trailer on and 26 without. Go figure!

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Jim in Waco