Actually, IMO it is possible to almost do everything for everyone there. Racers never use 5th or 6th gear (not that my car has a 6th anyway). There could be the existing close 1-4 ratios for racers, and a highway cruising gear (or two in a 6 speed). The problem with that would be people complaining about the big jump from 4th to 5th.Rope-Pusher wrote:Ratio closeness conflicts with overall transmission ratio spread. If you choose to have all the gear ratios closely spread, you will have to compromise either launch ratio or top gear ratio.
Bicycle gear choosers, and wannabe bicycle racers, suffer from the same close ratio infatuation as in cars...but need wide ratios even more. The powerband is very narrow, especially if you ask those who enjoy close ratios; they say that they need the close ratios, and I am forced to wonder if they only ride in a very small range of speeds and only on level land.If you want to have the perfect gear ratio for every situation, think of bicycles.
As a heavy guy, having the narrow powerband but being affected a lot more by hills (up AND down), wider range is far more effective for me on a bicycle. I can't get up a steep hill fast no matter what gear you give me, but I can get up it slowly and not be excessively tired at the top with a low crawl gear. In the meantime, I can make up the speed downhill; with my extra weight but similar frontal area, I can use gravity assist a lot better than a lightweight guy acting as a sail -- so I can actually make use of really tall gears. Someone else might run out of torque going downhill, but I run out of gear while passing all the folks who flew by me uphill.
I like to run 11-34 in the rear and a decently wide triple on the front, even on road bikes. My road bike is an abomination...
Don't big rigs use multiple ranges in that configuration?If you stay with one stick, the shift pattern will run from door panel to door panel. Maybe what you need is a splitter, like the front chainwheel on a bike, with 2 gear ranges and 4 gear ranges in the transmission. Oh wait, that's been done already. Mitsubishi Twin-Stick, circa 1982(?).
In the Rabbit's case, more dollars than sense - I'm pretty sure it uses off-the-shelf transmission that was made for the previous generation GTI.The powertrain is a system. It is optimized based on dollars and sense.