I need some help to determine what gear ratio I need for a strip Chevelle I am building. Is there a formula for this somewhere? What info is needed for this calculation.

Once you have decided on a power plant you should have an educated guess at what RPM peak power will occur. You'll want to go through the traps at or slightly above peak power for optimal ET. The driveline components (auto vs. manual, converter slip, final drive ratio of transmission, rear gear and tire size/growth) will all affect trap RPM. You just need to engineer all these components together to reach your goal. There are a number of online calculators that will allow you to plug in variables to determine what gearing would be optimal. I like the ones at http://www.prestage.com in the "car math" section.

hth...

I agree with what Ken said. The only thing I'll add is that you need to have a pretty good idea of what kind of power the motor will make and what the car weighs. These 2 things will determine what mph it will run. Once you get an idea of what kinda mph to expect and you know where pk hp is, then you'll be able to pick a gear.

For instance, 2 motors making 600hp (one at 5500 and one at 6500) will want different rear gears.

Or 2 motors making pk power at 6500, one making 600 and 1 making 700 will also want different gears.

Clear as mud? :confused:

If you want to list all the specs of the combo we might be able to make a recommendation.