I am planning on putting lockers on my truck soon and people have been telling me to change my gears while im at it! I have a 2003 SE Supercharged and was wondering what you guys think about it! Should i change the gears or not? And some people have told me to change my cam shaft because money wise its better! Im planning on putting front and rear and wanted to see what some of you guys have done out there? thanks!

What size tires are you running?? have any probmems turning them?? Lockers are great!! but only gear if there is a reason to... for the price of gears and setting them all up ect... some engine mods may be a good option too... Mind you, the diffs are apart....

Manual or automatic transmission. Automatic - get the lockers. Manual - get the gears first.

Toy Man

1. Locker
2. t-case gears
3. cams (if you MUST have more power)

Forget about regearing the diffs, unless you're planning on 35" tires. It's really, really not worth the $$.

Yeah - the diffs are OK for 33's, I have the 4.6, not even the 4.9's...and I'm OK for the 33's now. For 35's, re-gearing the diffs would be nice.

The idea of doing the diff gears when you do lockers is correct though, as you have the diffs open, doing the gears when you're in there makes sense labor wise.

For myself, I have a manual, and I want to do low t-case gears before a locker, if I have to choose one or the other first. My clutch will love me for it.

Im running 32" tires right now and my X is automatic! I feel a little bit of drag sometimes, might be supercharge lag or something! If i were to put lockers, then cam, then t-case gears and then Little stuff like exhaust etc... you guys think that fine or will i be wasting alot of money!

no supercharger lag...the supercharger is always turning...turbos lag, because they rely on exhaust gases to turn the turbine to compress the air.

With the SC, I'd see no reason to regear the diffs. The benefit wouldn't be worth the cost.

When you say gears do you mean R&P gears in the axles, or Tcase gears? Tcase gears are the shit, especially for manual transmission trucks, but I'd only even recommend those if you're fairly serious about offroading.

Yeah - it all depends upon why you want the performance...on the road, lockers are pretty much a waste, as are low t-case gears...but, as you are doing lockers anyway...diff gears will be cheaper...as the diffs are already open etc...but ~ $500 or so in parts.

Diff gears will give you more ooomph off the line, and accelerating or maintaining speed on a steep hill, etc...but, reduce your overdrive/potentially cost some mpg.

The low t-case gears are only engaged when in 4 low, so are not going to help much except when crawling...and, when crawling, they can't be beat.

If you are upping the ante to 35's in the future/want the option...THEN new diff gears are the way to go...otherwise, the trade offs might not do what you want them to....unless, that oomph off the line stuff appeals to you.

stock with 33 I was doing 68 and my speedo read 60, with 5.14 gears i'm 58 with my speedo 60. On a long trip to Moab, the truck got better gas mileage. And is much much nicer to drive. Mine is a manual though.

A lot of ppl will tell you to get gears, but if you like mud like your sig implies then they might not be for you. I've seen times when one of the guys in our club has troubles getting over an obstacle that rigs w/stock gears cruise over. Your crawl ratio will improve tremendously but you will have a harder time using momentum to get over an obstacle when it's needed. So if you are a crawler, gears are your best bet

I do a fairly good amount of trails a year, from mud to rock! I got the 3" inch lift and 32" tires! I have driven a stock Xterra (not supercharged) that had more ummmph than my truck! I dont think ill ever do above 33" tires! So i really dont know if i should do the gears or not! The reason why i would like to do it now (while doing the lockers) because as some of u were saying, the diff is already open! Also for the T-case gears, that is something i would like to also change but maybe next year!

just wondering but are you really excited all the time or is you'r period key typing exclamation points?

what do you think bud!

My Fellow CXQ member is Hyper all the time... Even more if he skiped his Rytalin daily dose

Sorry Xyellow

No prob Extra Fort.

The differential gears are too damn expensive for what you get out of them IMO... they're $450 per axle at 4x4parts.com. Better to get cams, headers, a smaller S/C pulley etc and make up the difference with POWER

Transfer case gears, on the other hand, are worth every penny if you do mountain wheeling.

thanks for the info guys, im descided to drope the gears and get a little more HP through cams, pulley, etc...