Removing 1ST gear

[gearheadeh]

I Get the impression that alot of people are physically removing or grinding the gears right off smooth for the 1st transmission gear or even 2nd. Any impressions of how much this is worth?

[Stan Back]

Which people on what kind of vehicle on what course?  We still consider it a drag race to the quarter mile on the long course at Bonneville.

Stan

[DallasV]

I wouldn't and here is the reason. Those of us with a lot of laps in our car only run 3rd and 4th gears unless the course is bad at the far end and we are trying to get it done by the 3 or 4. When a new or inexperianced driver is licencing or running they usually don't come off the push truck hard enough so they use second gear. We keep 1st in tact just in case there is an issue with the push truck and the car has to start under it's own power. So I'm not sure how much if any you get by grinding the gears smooth but you loose a lot of versatility.

[smitty2]

Not to sound facetious, but why would someone do this? I can't see the benefit it would be.

 Smitty...   

[SPARKY]

  reduce PARACITIC drivedrain losses

[NathanStewart]

I've only ever heard of reverse being pulled out. 

[Genuine GM]

Reduce rotational inertia as well.  But that is more of a 1/4 mile thing.   Less teeth to break off???

[jackson]

We did this to an old three speed truck transmission we ran in our modified sports class car.  I don't know if it was worth the drag loss, but it did cause some issues because of my push truck errors at the end of the road.  I caught the push bumper on the exit to the asphalt and almost set my airbags off.  Our car needed about a 40mph push to put in gear and we would have been in trouble if Skip Hedrich hadn't helped us out with a push the next morning.  If you are running in a very small engine class,  it might be worth the headache, but in my opinion, I would keep first gear for a back up.

[saltfever]

If it is a close ratio trans you may be in trouble depending on engine characteristics. If you run out of gear at the top end you will need to keep lowering the rear gear. Meaning you are also lowering your starting gear. As the rear gear ratio becomes higher and higher you may not have enough starting gear (in second) for the engine to pull through it’s hole in the bottom end. Cam, injection or carb, compression, etc, all influence the magnitude for the bottom end torque. There may not be enough bottom end torque to get the engine up “on the cam” in second and you will need low gear.