Newbie alert!
Considering a stock production vehicle e.g. not something built specifically with LSR pursuits. Specific vehicle is a 1995 Z28 Camaro with a factory stated drag coefficient of .34 and a frontal area of 22 sq ft, 400 HP, and 3.73:1 rear end gearing. Redline is approximately 6,000 rpm.
Anyway, I've looked at gearing and top speed calculators as well as formulas regarding how much horsepower is needed to achieve X speed. For any given HP, theoretically, a lower numerical gear ratio would result in a higher top speed whereas a higher numerical final drive ratio would increase acceleration but lower top speed.
However, as speed increases so does wind resistance, exponentially, resulting in the engine running out of sufficient horsepower/torque to overcome said resistance when running a numerically low final drive ratio.
Conversely, the same engine with a higher numerical final drive ratio would multiply the effective torque thus enabling the engine to overcome the wind resistance but then the engine reaches it's redline quicker and would wind out sooner thus limiting the top speed.
So my query is what does conventional wisdom say regarding what final drive ratio is the best balance for top speed e.g that ratio that keeps the engine in it's power range while allowing the RPMs to stay sufficiently high so that top speed is accomplished?
Disclaimer: I read an article many, many years ago in a car magazine that looked at this question. If I recall correctly they determined that for a stock production car of say 300 HP, e.g. not getting into specific LSR design, a final rear end ratio of around 3.73:1 was the best balance to achieve that car's top speed. To that end I've read that my car's top speed is achieved in 4th gear (1:1) not 5th (.75) nor 6th (.5) as math would indicate.
So I thought I'd try a forum such as this one to see what the prevailing wisdom is.