Re-gear and tuned

yea this is why (in addition to Jason's recommendation) I went with 5.29. More room to upgrade to larger tires and since gettin re-geared is not cheap it was the obvious path for my application.

 

RPMs on OEM tire size with 4.88 would be nearly identical to 33" with 5.29. If I were to stay stock, I'd likely choose 4.88. In stock form, I don't think my truck ever hit 6th gear. At 80mph it would be doing just under 2000 RPM, and there's no way it has enough power to keep this loaded down brick moving at those RPMs regardless of tune.

 

488's on 33's - no regrets. Some my argue mpg's are better with 488's than 529's. As others have said, if you want to go 34s and higher then just get 529's and be done. The higher RPM is real with 529s and quiet noticeable (noise wise). Anyway, what do I know. I did the swap myself but it kicked my a$$ literally. Go to a reputable place don't risk it if you don't feel comfortable. Good luck.

 

I did the math on stock 245/75 (30.5") tires at the stock 3.90 gear ratio and moving up to 265/75 (31.6") to get the equivalent gearing performance it came out to something low 4's like 4.08-4.10. I also knew i would eventually Supercharge the truck so 4.88 made sense to me and even NA felt good on the road for a daily driver interstate and weekend trail truck.

 

I did mine as well, just did the swap with ECGS. I found I am not as strong as I was in my younger days, and not nearly as strong as I think I am. But a cheap transmission jack from HF came to the rescue. But doing it this way made it a great value, and it's one of my favorite mods to the truck.

I was fretting about the decision so much that I did a whole spreadsheet with automatic color coding to illustrate where the sweet spots were at different speeds and tire sizes. I wanted better gearing than stock but still able to run on the highway at reasonable RPMs. In the end, it was my use of the truck that pushed me to 5.29. I wanted 285/75R16 tires, and I don't do a lot of high-speed interstate driving. I don't really go more than 75mph, mostly 65 on back highways. If I did lots more interstate, I'd likely have opted for 4.88. That said, depending on wind direction and hills, even with 5.29s the truck will sometimes hunt between 5th and 6th at 75mph, but way less hunting than the 4th and 5th hunting it was doing stock.

 

@auskip07 - would love to see pics of your setup. Seems like we got similar taste on the upgrades we have chosen.

 

Something that changed my calculations pretty significantly was using actual measured tire diameter vs advertised. My 285 toyos were 31 and a quarter. Just a heads up for anyone agonizing over the decision in the future