First of all I drive a 6spd... Who in their right mind would run a SCCA sports car with an auto, unless you have a million $ F1 gearbox. The car is tuned perfectly with new chip and advanced timing for 100 octane and iridium plugs. Obviously you don't know that most road courses have a hairpin that leads into a straightaway. Hairpin being 90 to 130 degree turn. Trust me, I hit everyone of those at max speed that the car can handle without ending up in the run-off.

As far as throttle acceleration through the turns, I'm sure you don't even know that the LSD and ETC in the car electronically applies the opposing brake during power slides. Even if the ETC is turned off, it will still activate at a certain point. So, driving this car at it's ultimate extreme is a fine line. Do you even know what happens when you are trying to power slide through a corner and the ETC kicks in ? Well, it wants to send the car in a straight line. Not really good when you're planning on using the slide of the rear end to negotiate your arc thru a corner.

I think what you're missing is, on a 2000' straight away coming from a hairpin that will maybe let you slide through at 45mph you will never get a chance to use your 6th gear before you are diving back down into the next turn, because the car does not have the acceleration to reach a speed that you need 6th gear on 90 percent of the road courses here on the west coast. So, basically you use 2nd thru 5th on the whole track.

Now, with a 3.87:1 differential, you have now gained the use of 6th gear because your shifting point has been reduced by 13 percent. So now the car is running in it's power band in the higher gears on the types of tracks that I run.

As far as your driver comment, I won't even respond... NASCAR, TURN LEFT, TURN LEFT, TURN LEFT... Gee lots of fun!!!

 

technically a CVT has unlimited amounts of Gear ratios, hence the name...

 

Glad to know I am not the only one who thinks the 1st gear is to short.
2nd is too tall to start off in, and 1st runs out too soon.

San Diego Bob

 

Its short, but not as short as the first gear in my 02 Nissan Sentra SE-R Spec-V. That was my previous car, I have to get used to staying a little longer in first now.

I know that short first gear made drag racing tricky.

 

__________________1st. gear________________________final drive_______
____________________ratio_________________________ ___ratio_________


CROSSFIRE__________4.46:1_____6000 RPM = 31 MPH_____3.27:1______________

BMW M3____________4.23:1_____8000 RPM = 40 MPH_____3.62:1______________

NEW MIATA_________3.82:1_____6750 RPM = 31 MPH_____4.10:1______________

INFINITY G35________3.79:1_____6600 RPM = 38 MPH_____3.54:1______________

RX-8_______________3.76:1_____9000 RPM = 39 MPH_____4.44:1______________

SOLSTICE___________3,75:1_____6800 RPM = 35 MPH_____3.91:1______________

NEON SRT-4_________3.65:1_____6600 RPM = 36 MPH_____3.55:1______________

AUDI TT____________3.42:1_____6600 RPM = 34 MPH_____4.20:1_______________

CAYMAN____________3.31:1_____7200 RPM = 44 MPH_____3.88:1_______________

ACURA RSX TYPE S___3.27:1_____8000 RPM = 38 MPH_____4.77:1_______________


These are a few statistics of cars we should all be familiar with. As you can see, the XF has the dubious honor of having the "lowest" 1st. gear ratio of the bunch, but the "highest" final drive ratio too. Of course tire size needs to be figured into the equation also. The Miata is the only car that shares the Crossfires limited 1st. gear range at red line. Obviously we have nobody else to blame, or thank for these numbers except Mercedes Benz.
In my opinion, MB gave this drive train set up this particular 1st. gear ratio to compensate for the otherwise "high" final drive ratio. As annoying as it sometimes is to run out of RPM so quickly in 1st. gear, it does afford us the opportunity to "pull a hole shot" on some other higher HP. cars at the traffic lights. (Has anybody got a 60' time on a non-supercharged XF yet?) With the way the XF hooks up, it should be pretty good.
I chose a manual 6sp. over the automatic because I like to shift, after all, it is still a "sports car" right? But I know it probably feels just as "sporty" to some others with the automatic, to each his own. But one thing I've learned over the years, that when it comes to a sports cars, allowances sometimes need to be made. So I pretty much live with the short 1st. gear, and accept it as part of the "character" of the Crossfire.

 

I just did a little playing around with the numbers and found that if we threw that 3.82:1 Miata 1st gear in our trannys, we would increase speed from 31 to 36 mph. If we used the 3.31:1 gear from they Cayman it would take us to 41 mph.

More importantly (to me at least) is the road speed at 3,000 RPM, which is usually when I shift to second:

Stock: 15 MPH
3.82: 18 MPH
3.31: 21 MPH

Too bad we don't have cassette type trannys so we could play around with this.

 

Thanks I know, ratios are not really unlimited, still has a top and bottom. CVT - Continuously Variable Transmission.

Was just referring to the way auto boxes keep adding gears - three, then four, five, six, seven, what next, where does the extra complication / weight cancel out the return .

If you didn't know DAF were using CVT in the 1950's and Williams investigated CVT for F1 in 1990's.

 

Ok with 3.27, 2.80, 3.84 gears in this is about what you would have. Oh and with the 2.80's at 60 mph you'd be alittle under 2K and 70 alittle over 2k. Now with this I can see your point about track use HDDP, but I still think the 2.80's would be better for a daily driver. Think about when you take a corner in town 2nd it too short and 3rd is too tall. This would make 2nd just about right for corning in town. 6th would be turned into a cruising gear.

...(stock)
...3.27...2.80...3.84
1st...31...36...26 mph
2nd...53....62...45
3rd...81...94...68
4th...112...130...94
5th...139...162...117
6th...166...192...141