So I bought this 05 ralliart, love the car. Unfortunatly I now drive 98 miles a day for work and 90 of it is at 70+ mph. I am noticing that the gearing is set so that at 70 im well over 3000rpm. On my way to work traffic flows at around 75-80 mph, and like alot of you guys, I find myself wishing I could grab the shifter for one more gear.

So my question is this. Is there ANY option (besides a different car) for a 6 speed?
I'd hate to get a 5 speed thats just geared higher and lose the acceleration. Years ago I had a 91 eclipse 2.0 dohc that had a totally useless 5th gear cuz it was geared to high. 5th gear was basically cruise control for that car.

If theres a thread for this, please point me in the right direction. I did a search but it brought up tons of unrelated stuff.
<--Guy looking for 6th gear

 

whats your mileage? lol cause i go about 75 on long trips and end up with 31 mpg.

 

Im only gettin around 26.5 and the car is bone stock. Im almost considering putting the tire pressure up to what the tire sidewall says (44psi).

 

Unfortunately, there is no 6 speed option for these cars. The EvoMR 6 speed tranny won't bolt up, nor would the internals swap over. Bumping up the tire pressure a little will help reduce rolling resistance, but the higher the psi the less grip you'll have for accelerating, braking, and turning.

I run 36.5psi front, 34psi rear. I don't remember the stock pressure, I think it was something ridiculously low like 29. Probably the only way to get the stock Eagle RS-As to grip.

 

Well, I would imagine that if you wanted to get rid of some of the road noise, another option would be to sound deaden your car.

 

You could contact a transmission rebuilder that handles DSM transmissions and see if they are able to put in a taller 5th gear. Wouldn't affect your acceleration in 1-4. I know that TRE offers this for DSM FWD transmissions and Shep can probably do it, too.

At one point I wanted a taller 5th, too, but decided against it. Cruising at 70-75, I have no issues getting around 29-31 mpg. City driving MPG still isn't great (26-27), but there's nothing you can do about that except change your driving habits.

 

too bad i cant make my fourth gear taller. i has an auto.



...or CAN I? haha


anyways. i run 37 psi in the front and in the back I got my 205/35/18s. My stock size tires in front arent anything special, but they grip pretty good. at least in summer. when it starts raining i gotta let some air out otherwise i get wheel spin when making a right turn from a dead stop.

 

Wow I run 32psi front and rear... Maybe i should bump it up a little bit and see what kind of mpg gains I get, I usually get around 30mpg highway going 75mph average though.

A 6th gear was one of the first things I thought after driving my RA on the highway, though.

 

Same.

 

Yeah I don't mind it anymore commuting. I get 30+ like everyone else while cruising at 75mph. Lately I have been getting about 340 miles per tank.

 

32psi is fine for the rear but it really is too low for the front (even though it's what the manufacturer recommends.) For street driving I run the tires at 35/33 and I get completely even tire wear (ignoring all the shoulder wear from autocrossing.) Will help the car corner better, too, since it'll do a bit better job of keeping the tires from rolling onto the sidewalls.

 

Man I guess I just have been beating on mine a bit lately I've gotten like 280ish on th hwy.

 

Awesome, I'll do this right now, thanks for the info.

 

dirty 5 year old air filter? lol

 

Well i put the pressure up to the sidewall rating (44psi) These are Nexen CP641 97v tires if anyone is wondering, They are actually the wrong size too, 205/55/r16, but I didnt put them on, they came from the dealer. Ive noticed a difference slightly so far, my gas needle didnt seem to move quite as far on my commute today (90 miles), but Ill let you know after I Fill it and run a tank through, what my milage ends up like.

Cornering still seems good, theres a sharp curve at the end of I794 down in Milwaukee that I threw it into today at around 70 ish, whatever the top of third gear is. Suprisingly the tires didnt complain, I did notice substantial body roll, but i had never cornered it that hard before, so who knows. Ill keep ya'll up to date on the results of my tire PSI experiment.