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3.54 Ring and Pinion

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Rob
Why do feel this is the best modification that you have made??
 
If you put a lot of miles on your car you'll appreciate less NVH. Key points:

- much more relaxed pace on highways/freeways (where, face it, you do most of your driving if you cover long distances)
- (slightly better) gas mileage
- second gear more useful in most instances
- first gear not so gosh-awful low (takes a little more finesse to get a smooth launch, though--best to more-or-less just dump the clutch)

Since Big Healeys are pretty torquey, and not drag racers no-matter-what, overall it's a terrific upgrade. One astute writer once claimed the 3.54 diff with 28% O/D was the best possible configuration.
 
I'm curious about this. Was this an original item for a limited number of years? Why are there so few available?

I did an internet search and didn't come up with much information, but I did find this site that appears to be selling new ones. Anyone have more information?

https://www.354gears.com/index.html

Keith
 
BJ8TONY, I think it's the best modification for all the reasons Bob mentioned above. It really makes the car a pleasure to drive.

Keith, I believe the 3.54 ratio was standard on Healey's made without an overdrive. The OD was an option on the early cars but not many were build without OD. That's why those rear ends were scarce. I don't know if the later cars (BJ8) all came with OD and the 3.9 ratio.
 
Rob Glasgow said:
... I don't know if the later cars (BJ8) all came with OD and the 3.9 ratio.
Click to expand...

I believe that's the case. A while back (10-12 years maybe), Michael Lempert--of steering wheel fame--had a limited production run done. He charged $200, and I got a set. '354gears' is being run by Michael's son. There are some other manufacturers making them, but now the cost is very high (around $700 or so). I think Denis Welch might have them; Gary Hemphill had them for a while but he's out of business.
 
Thanks for the replies and the info. I did find them at Denis Welch, but they're 595 British pounds, which translates to $960! Yikes!

It does seem like a nice modification though. I'll have to watch the one on ebay...

Keith
 
Several years ago I had a whine in my BT7 rear end, and I had read that the Austin Westminster (a six cylinder British sedan) used a compatible rear end for Healeys, that allowed for better cruising at speed, so I found a scrap dealer who had several old Westminsters, swapped him for some surplus MGB stuff, and changed out the old rear end for this one, which was stamped "39T11". This apparently equates to the 3.54 ring and pinion discussed here, at least according to the website listed below. If you can find a scrapyard with old Brit cars, these models were pretty popular back in the 60s. https://www.ntahc.org/techtips/REAREND1.html
Now I'm not a technical person (far from it), but from a purely subjective observation, I have found this to be a better setup than what was originally in the car.
 
I put the Lempert Gears in last year and I think they are great. One of the guys in the So Cal club just ordered and received them from Lempert in short order. As I understand it they have extra sets right now. My advise would be to snap these up before there all gone.

I bought in early and I waited more than a year for mine, and I would do it all over again.

Get em while there hot.

Jeff
 
Link to Lempert anyone ?

Hans
 
I got one of the first 3.54 gear sets of the production run by Mike Lempert in 2002. That is, I received and installed the gear set in 2002 but it was two years from deposit to receipt of the product. My continuing thanks to Mike for starting and continuing the project to remanufacture the gears through to the finish. I agree that for anyone who puts miles on their Healey, the modification from 3.91 to 3.54 gears is about the best modification that can be done due to easy cruising and slightly better fuel economy. It has been that for me for 65,000 miles.

Overdrive remained an "option" for Healeys to the end of BJ8 production, so it isn't true that all later cars had overdrive. However, very few Healeys came to North America without overdrive and the 3.91 rear end. Non-overdrive equipped cars were much more common for RHD cars for the UK home market. There were some few "Personal Export Cars" specially ordered by the first owner without overdrive (probably to save a few bucks), and some of these came to North America. Thus, original 3.54 rear ends have always been pretty rare hear. There were other Austin cars that used the 3.54 rear ends besides Healeys, but I think they also were relatively rare in America.
 
I see there is now another of these on ebay, but this one is "brand new" and $600. I'm assuming this is one of the Lempert-made ones.

Keith
 
What are you guys doing to recalibrate the odometer/speedo for the new diff ratio?
 
I had a speedometer shop install new ratchet gears for the odometer and trip meter. The speed cal is just done by moving the needle.
 
You remove the cable from the back of the speedo, attach a pointer to it, such as a piece of masking tape, push the car through 52 feet, 9-1/2" and measure the number of turns the pointer makes. This enables the speedo shop to re-calibrate your speedometer. I've used Nisonger in New York; West Valley Instruments (Morris Mintz) can do it in LA.
Nisonger has a pdf on how to do this.

Peter Roses just added the 3.54 to his BN6 with the 28% overdrive and he informs me 3000 rpm is now about 81mph!

My BN6 has the 3.54 axle with the Toyota W58 Supra trans which is 22% overdrive and 3000 rpm is about 74mph.
 
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