Alright - see now I am confused - people say to get the regear to help on gas mileage too? I have had my 6" pro comp lift in the garage... I just ordered my rims and tires I am going with 18" pro comp series metal mulisha and 35" Trail Grappler M/T - and was planning on 4.56 gears and was going to give a friend who I sold my race bike to a generator, tire warmers and stands for the bike and he was going to do the job for me -

With me getting the Edge Evolution CS and 4.56 gears will it help? I do not ride hard at all - currently ..and really only time I plan riding hard is when I am going off road - and yes okay I get it - its a truck but traveling from NY to Alaska I am trying to salvage as much gas mileage as possible so if I stay with the 3.55 am I okay - my ideal HWY is atleast 13 MPG with all the stuff installed - city I could careless

 

Look at the chart posted on the previous page. The RPMs shown are when your're cruising at 65mph so if you stick with the 3.55s, your RPMs will be lower then if you had 4.56s. Lower RPMs at highway speeds translates to better fuel economy. The 4.56s are great when lower RPM torque is required, like off-the-line launches, lots of stops and starts, or when towing. So around town, yes, your MPGs will be better but if you do a lot of highway driving and can live with the lower RPM "bogging" (if you want to call it that), then I'd recommend sticking with the lower gear-set.

Now after all of that, we're talking about a difference of ~600rpm at 65mph. How much money will that translate to during the length of the trip? If less than/equal to the dollars it will take to PAY someone to install the 4.56s once you get to Alaska, I say get them done before you start your trip (installs for front and rear would be ~$600). I dont think the gear swap will translate into a lot of money saved/lost as far as MPG is concerned.

Something else to consider is how competent is your friend at installing gears? For such a long trip, I would be sure I had PLENTY of time for those gears to break-in and there are no vibes or whine's coming from the diff. The last thing you'd want is diff probs once you're on the road...maybe another reason to stick with your stock gears until you got to Alaska.

 

thanks MAN! dang finally got a straight forward answer on that