Gear Ratios

Texan I enjoy reading your articles; they are booth informative and fun to read.

Yet I have one question for you, can you shed any light on gear ratios? IM tired of reading magazines that talk about a cars particular gear ratios, for example: "the final gear ratio if this tranny is 4.3:1". I know they mean 4.3 to 1. But what is the "1", is this "1" the same for every other engine, or is it just a comparison of the grears in conjunction to that particular transmission?.

If they're talking about the transmission alone, then it means 4.3 revolutions of the input shaft for every 1 revolution of the output shaft. If they're talking about the drivetrain as a whole, it's engine:wheels.

Feel free to chide me if I've inappropriately usurped your thread, Texan...

Umm IM beginning to understand. Well, but for now I was asking more about the transmission. By the way thank you for correcting me on that "knock" explanation I did. :)

I can't remember the last time I saw someone use usurped in a sentence :) (And it's quite alright, evidently this forum is no longer emailing me upon new posts)

I understand your confusion arcadiabc, I have always wondered why they don't use the term combined ratio in place of final ratio. Both mean the same thing, but the former is much easier to comprehend as a multiplication concept.