New Gears available in September!
 

Just thought I would share this information I received from Jim Marcellus (Performance Aftermarket Sales Manager for U.S. Gear):

"Keith, GREAT to hear from you, here are the part #’s and Availability Dates

01-486308 3.08 Ratio Available August 2011
01-410410 4.10 Ratio Available September 2011
01-486323 3.23 Ratio Available September 2011
01-486373 3.73 Raito Available September 2011
01-486456 4.56 Ratio Available September 2011

Pricing has not yet finalized but our material is Substantially Higher but we are going to keep the consumer right in line with ALL of our competitors."


I'm not sure what he means by "our material is Substantially Higher", but I did mention to him that the "other" current supplier of gears has had a few problems with quality and noise issues!!! BTW, he did give me permission to share this info with you guys. Now, I guess we can only wait and see if the release dates remains true. I should start searching for a U.S. Gear vendor!!!

Does anyone have any experience with U.S. Gears in the past, are they historically noisy or what? I haven't heard much about them in the Performance Market.

This is excellent news.

I might be mistaken but are they (U.S. Gears) the same organization that makes the Camaro OEM gears?

nope,, camaro rear end and gears are made by AAM

The 3.08's make sense for high power beasts, but the 3.23's might be a tough sell with 3.27's floating around out of the autos.
4.56, woo-hoo!

Yep, you're probably right about the 323's. And I completely agree with the "woo-hoo" on the 4.56's!!! I really wanted to put all the gear I can in my car, especially since I really don't ever plan on turning it in to some 600hp beast, I wanted something a little more than the standard 4.11's. If the Richmond gears weren't having so many problems, I would definitely jump on the 4.33's. But I don't know....4.56's might be just way too much?!?!? What do ya'll think, is that really even feasible for a street car?

Something to think about
 

Guys keep in mind we have grown up talking gear ratios on cars with a smaller tire than the 28 inch Camaro.The 3.73 in a camaro for instance would be about the same as a 3.55 in a GTO..

Sooooo....what your saying is the 4.56's on a sub-500hp new Camaro LS3, might not be as over-the-top extreme as what I'm thinking it is, right?

I had 4.56's in my AT '79 Z/28. Only did about 110 mph(3spd) as I remember, but it was a monster between the lights for only around 250-275 crank hp.

Ok so what is a stock gear on a 2ss with a M6 and what would still be a good mannered gear for highway and street without killing my 24 -26 mpg

Stock OEM gears on a stock SS (LS3) are 3.45's. If you looking for a "good-mannered" highway gear......you've already got it! On a semi-stock LS3, I really don't think it would be worth the cost to upgrade to 3.73's. But if you really want a decent kick in the pants, you've got to go with the 4.10's or higher. The 5th and 6th gears on the Tremec are very long gears, sorta like having a double-overdrive. At 70 mph (in 6th gear), the RPM difference between the stock 3.45 gears and 4.10's, is only about 300 RPM's, which is pretty minimal. There's a terrific write-up from Apex Chase in the post below:

http://www.camaro5.com/forums/showthread.php?t=136227

with more gear availability does this mean that we can see a break in the pricing department? $600 bucks just for gears minus install kit is kinda steep dont you guys think?

What happened to the good ol $200 gear days?

Yes, $600 for gears (or $800 for the LPE gears) is completely ridiculous!!! I would sure like to think when U.S. Gear and Motive finally release their gears, hopefully the additional competition will drive a price drop eventually. Probably won't be immediate, but hopefully within 6 months or so. I'm so impatient, that's my only problem!!!

I wouldn't bet on it...the Camaro 5th gen community is absolutely mod crazy and cost doesn't seem to faze most (yeah, I'm guilty too).