323 gearbox

[Jozi]

Can anyone confirm are all 323 gearboxes of the dogleg variety? What would these be like with a m52b28?

[Grrrmachine]

I think it's only the 323i Sport box that's a dogleg; you can check the table on the Wiki:

http://www.e30zone.net/e30zonewiki/inde ... ain#Manual

That'll give you the ratios to compare with the performance when fitted to an M52

[Jozi]

How do I read that table when comparing numbers? Is 3.72 shorter or longer than a 3.76? Looking at the table and 5th being 1:1, I would guess 1-4 are all shorter gears?

[Jozi]

Called the guy selling the box, it's not a dogleg box. Thought I found a bargain :p

[Grrrmachine]

The gear ratio is exactly like the gears on your bike, but in reverse. On your bike, Gear 1 will have your legs spinning around crazily and not going fast, and gear 18 is a monumental effort to move anywhere. On a car, a high number (3.76) will be gear 1 on your bike, and a low number (1, or even 0.81) will be gear 18 on your bike.

To get it into your head, visit this website and fill in the numbers:

http://www.kabamus.com/garage/gears.html

Put in your tyre info (205, 55 and 15 for example) in the first three boxes, and a decent diff (3.64) in the last box. Then take the numbers from the Wiki Gearbox table, and put each one in turn into the Transmission Ratio box, and click "calculate speed". It'll show you how changing the ratio affects the speed for each given rev (1000, 2000 and so on).