Best Diff Ratio For An E36 328?

[Low Level]

I want to upgrade my 328's 2.93 Open to an LSD, and slightly higher ratio.

Would you recommend a 3.15 or a 3.23? 3.38 will be too high for me - I would like to keep the car daily driverable, and for it to retain liveable RPMs at highway speeds.

[Spencer]

I'd go with the shortest ratio you can, while still having decent rev's for freeway driving.

3.38 really isn't bad. I know alot of people using them in their daily drivers. But, they are hard to find and expensive.

If you don't want to go that route, I would suggest a 3.23.

[aweather]

I made up a quick and dirty (no aero) excel spreadsheet just to get a feel for the deltas I would get in shift points and freeway cruizing speed with different diff ratios. It's not an acurate way to quantify what rpm you will run on the freeway or speed at shift points but it will give you a good feel for how much more rpms you will be turning and how much different your shift point speeds will be compared to what you have now. Email me with an email that I can send an attachment to if you want the spreadsheet. I would post it up but .xls is not one of the accepted file extensions on bimmerforums.

Alex

Edit: just realized your tranny gearing might be different but that's easy to update in the spreadsheet just make sure you remember bc I will forget to remind you

[Uli]

Check this one out: http://www.bimmerworld.com/Tech/GearMPH.xls

[BabyM]

I really like my 3.23. It had a minimal effect on gas mileage and has improved the acceleration greatly --I can feel an increase in g's when I launch

The increase in number of shifts is really not a big deal.

(E36 328's and M3s use the same transmission gear ratios)