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3rd gear in mountains?

2K views 14 replies 6 participants last post by  jwalters2522 
#1 ·
Got back from Lake Tahoe this week coming home on highway 89/88. 13' two door auto with 3.73 and take off rubis that I put on for the trip. Recalibrated dead on gps wise.

Without the extra weight of the hardtop I still found myself needing to downshift to third gear alot to get somewhat near the 55mph speed. Most the time I still could only maintain 50. Not sure how steep and incline that trek is but just felt the jk was struggling with that setup. Top it off I had a prius on my butt that I had to let pass me. Jeep has 25k miles. Sure glad I didn't leave the 35s on, would have needed a Fred Flinstone door. ( removed knowing I didn't have proper gears for the 35s coupled with high altitude mountain driving). Is this average?
 
#2 ·
I did a trip this past winter to san juan mountains. I have a 12 6 spd and I experienced that same problem, at the time I had 3.21 and 35's so I was stuck on flat ground with Amarillo wind against me at about 50-55 or 4th gear. Going up the mountain 3rd was the only way to maintain speed. They do great stock or at least mine did with the tiny 16's but it drastically changes with mods.
 
#5 ·
So you needed third with 3.21 and 35s? And I needed third with 3.73 and 32s lol. Yea doesn't add up. Not sure if manual/auto has anything to do with that.
auto is a 5spd where as I have 6 so my 4th is your 3rd I can also control the shift points, auto will always try to save as much gas as possible and switch back and forth constantly. Also with 35's I can go a lot faster with the 3.21, faster as in top speed not power. Im going to say depending on the load you had in the vehicle and the climb that's about normal. did you have OD off?
 
#4 ·
I'm up there on 88 all the time. Mine is a 2dr Rubi with 4.1 gears. 6th is useless below 60, so 4th and 5th get used quite a bit. Forget passing unless you have a long stretch. You're probably about one gear lower than me most of the time, so 3rd is not unreasonable.

I think anything higher than 4.10, like the 3.73, is too high for the JK. But don't worry about reving it to get what you want and when you get up over 7,000', they feel pretty weak.

BTW, just for the fun of it, take Sonora Pass one of theses days. I know it's not a direct route to Tahoe, but it's a wonderful road.
 
#8 ·
I enjoy new surroundings so I'll definitely take a drive on that thanks. So third is reasonable good to know. I have the cash saved up for a 4.56 swap but waiting on a diagnosis to this vibration my 35s seem to amplify. I thought about 4.88 but for most my flat land driving figured that's probably ideal.
 
#13 ·
Right I can do 60 in third too but it'll be screaming, I just wanted it to not struggle on hills. With 3.21 your the sports car, 4.88 take away all my speed but I get power in return.

Auto's do all the fighting and shifting for you, in a manual with 3.21 and 35's I just couldn't take it. Lost 6th with 33's and fifth would bog on east Texas hills with 35's. I had to gear.
 
#14 ·
You are dealing with a naturally aspirated small v6 and tall gearing...

This is the one thing I don't like about the jeep - even though it's primarily used to be towed behind our rv, I'm still having an issue getting used to the lack of push...

coming from large hp/torque turbo deezles, there's too much drama and not much performance in this lil v6 :) heck, even thrashing it into the hi revs only makes more noise not much more speed...

one of these days there will be an upgrade under the hood - turbo, supercharger, or something...
 
#15 ·
they have both and engine swaps that also have boosted apps. I hear good things about the turbo for the 3.6 but not so good things about the supercharger. Last I heard the turbo was working on getting a spool around 1500 RPM....but I don't know theres a member on here that has a huge thread on the turbo and what she? did.
 
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