Best 4.10 gears to buy?
 

I am looking to do this upgrade to my 95 Trans Am but I don't know where the best place to buy these is and best brand? I see Richmond, Motive, and people talk about GM. Suggestions? Do I need to get an installation kit and gear oil for it to provide to whoever I have install them? How much is the typical install cost?

Any one of those will work, brand etc depends on preference of the buyer. You wont need anything real high end until your making serious power. Id warn you tho, a 4.10 will be rough on a stock rearend. If you go to the track at all, and the rearend is stock with 4.10s....you better bring a trailor. Not saying its made of egg shells but cant do any nitrous launches or 5k clutch dumps. Prices vary, depends if you find a buddy or have to hire a shop. Id get chatty with the local car guys to find someone to do the work for you.

Motives. Richmonds can be a bitch to set up and remain quiet.

I have summit racing brand gears, almost 5k street miles with the occasional runs against others. Set up perfect and no noise what so ever.

Yea Motive, when my car had the stock rear I broke 2 Richmond 4.10 sets, one when I was just easing away from a traffice light. I never had any problem with the Motive 4.10's though but I'm glad I finally went with a better rear (S60) and now no worries at all.

Try to get a set of GM or Yukon gears if possible..... I had MOTIVE 4.10s and they lasted 2 trips to the track on Dragradials and some mildly spirited street driving on Raials after that the teeth were breaking! After that i found a set of Factory 4.10s in an 89 s10 4 banger truck. Much quieter and have lasted longer.

Orange box motives.

Sounds like the majority say Motive gears. Yes there for the 10 bolt because I can't afford an expensive rear end unless someone can suggest a relatively cheap one but seeing I don't plan on taking it to the track often I think I should be fine.

It depends on the application. The Richmond Pro gears is what I run, but my car is only used for drag racing and the pro gears take the shock far better. The downside is that they would be noisy on the street.

I ran Motives in the past and never had any issues with tons of track and street races. Also thought GM used Motive gears???? I might be wrong on that though.

You are.

I've destroyed two sets of motives.... both 4.10

I said hell with it and put in a set of 3.73's.
They've lasted quite a while until a check ball stuck in the separator plate and toasted the 3/4 clutch pack. lol
p.s. wife was driving :chuck-bal

Can't tell you about now, but in the old days, GM ran their gear factory 24/7.

When car sales were down they simply sold the gears to the aftermarket gear companies.

I always bought Motive with a G part no. They were actually made by GM and had the beveling on each gear that allows them to be quite. Motive also makes gears but not the same way GM does.

The last gear change I did on the 98, I specified the GM gears and what I got was either a crappy setup job or non GM mfg gears.

So sometime soon I will get a new set (heck, I might have a set in the garage) and go back to the GM made gears.

Perry

You 100% sure on that? I could swear I ordered a oem GM gear set from the GMPP catalog and they came in a motive box with GM emblems on it. Ever since then I used motive.

Yep. The gears that came in our cars were not motives. I think they were AAM.

AAM makes the gears for GM, they also make the entire rear end housing as well. I run AAM 4.10s and they're quiet and seem to hold up just fine on street tires.
http://www.aam.com/

I know aam made GM gears but mine were stamped genuine GM gears and came from Motive. I was def suprised when they showed up. Also they never made a sound.

Back when I spent most every Friday at Rear End Specialties in San Jose doing one of the cars for either a diff (mostly) or gears (sometimes), he is the one that told me that GM makes its own gears and sells excess to others to rebox.

He asked if I wanted to fund a purchase for him. You could have made money I suppose but they wanted $80/R&P and the minimum order was 10,000 sets and you didn't get to pick the ratios. They just gave you what they had that was excess at that time.

That was mid and late 90's. Who knows what is going on these days.

Perry