Small gear vs. regular gear

Another "fad" in my opinion, Seeing tons of guys trying it around us but only the guys that were very fast before seem to be winning on it... ;)
 
There is a very large advantage to it.

How? That I can't explain.

What I have seen though, is the "mini gear" setup shows alot more speed potential on smaller tracks then it does the larger ones. Even on the large tracks, there is an advantage there. A clone engine with the mini gear setup really debunks the "a ratio is a ratio" theory.

As Ken mentioned, if you aren't in the hunt with a regular gear setup, switching to the mini isnt going to magically put you there.
 
From what I've seen locally most are only doing it with clones. Some who tried it will animals and flatheads have changed back to "standard gearing".
 
1 its lighter especially with the small chain guide 2. if there is a front sprocket rule and you need to have a sprocket lower than a 53 the mini gears go to a 44
 
The major factor with the mini gear is the recovery time, and in qualifying your get up to speed lap is much quicker.
There is a difference in qualifying for sure, and if youre a type of driver who makes mistakes during a race this will help you.
Yes the ones who are winning on it are the ones whos been winning before, the mini gear isnt going to automatically make you a winner, but there is an advantage in using this if you understand how to use it. This is far from a fad.
 
IMHO anytime you stress a working mechanical item it takes effort.
IMHO putting stress on a working clutch takes rotating effort which could be used for something else, mainly rotating your axle gear.
Do you want to use effort stressing your clutch with a big lever when a smaller lever could be used while it's rotating?
answer IMHO: no

That is why wrong or right I used mini gears on our UAS jackshaft instead of larger gears.
It was eight use a 12 or15 or use an (I think it was) use a 17 or 19 on the clutch.
We also only needed to use 31 links of chain and could either run our jackshaft output chain on the left with the power take-off of the engine on the right or run our jackshaft output chain on the right with the power take-off from the engine on the left.
Same jackshaft setup for either yammi or K30.

IMHO we stressed our clutchless and increased the stress pulling on the top of our axle gear.
There was enough stress pulling forward and down put on the top or our axle gear mounted on our aluminum axle, to both steer our RR out in the front like in a zero turn mower and to also get some camber gain on the RR tire.
We twisted and pulled our aluminum axle forward in the center an inch to an inch and a half.

Without the smaller clutch driver diameter, it would have put too much twisting stress from the angled chain on the clutch.
It worked better and better as our axle heated up from being twisted gaining more and more RR steering and camber gain as the race went along.
I eventually had to move the brake caliper from in front of the brake disk to behind it to keep the brake rotor from grinding on the caliper.

As Al alluded to in the second post on here, where's all the chatter about the gains from the experience of using larger gears to maintain momentum?

The magic of all racing is top speed versus acceleration.
If what you race can't pound out hp up top then you have to go for torque on the bottom thru gearing and that's the way it has always been.
It's not about top-end hp or bottom-end torque, it's about the total application your putting on what the track has to offer.

I can and will guarantee you the hot-shoes with the mini gears are also better at doing their turning and deceleration while going uphill and their straight racing and acceleration while going downhill, than most.
 
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At the risk of sounding like Al,

One thing worth noting is that as you get smaller, your gear ratio changes become larger. For example:

Lets say I need more acceleration out of the corner.

If I am running an 11/44 (tiny gear set) and i want to go up one tooth to an 11/45, I have changed my ratio by 0.09 (4.00->4.09).
If I am running a 15/60 and I want to go up one tooth to a 15/61, I have changed my ratio by 0.06 (4.00 -> 4.06)

With the tiny gear sets, it is harder to make small gear ratio changes.
 
You are not sounding like Al.
IMHO Al never made that good point.
IMHO his wrong incorrect bull was always and probably still is an argument about ratio is a ratio, which is still wrong and not correct.
 
You are not sounding like Al.
IMHO Al never made that good point.
IMHO his wrong incorrect bull was always and probably still is an argument about ratio is a ratio, which is still wrong and not correct.
He is technically correct. A 4.00 ratio is a 4.00 ratio no matter the combination to get there. Where I start to disagree with Al is that he believes that they all behave the same. A 4.00 ratio with a 15/60 and a 4.00 ratio with a 12/48 will behave very differently. The ratio will be the same at the end of the day, but they will do that ratio differently.
 
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