5 speed or 6 speed?

[nizmo s14]

Which one would be beter for drifting in your opinion?

[Apparition]

As a relative newbie, how does the tall end gear have anything to do at all with drifting?

[adey]

the tall end should have nothing to do with drifting, it would only really be useful on the highway (better gas mileage).
It's also been said (and I believe it) that the 6spd tranny (i assume we're talking about the silvia s13/14/15 5 speeds and the S15 spec-R's 6 spd trannies) from the S15 is slightly weaker than the 5-spds because there's another gear in the same sized tranny, and in order to fit another gear in there they had to make the other gears smaller.
from what I hear, "drifters" actually change the 6spd out of the spec-R in favor of the 5-spd, because it can take more abuse.

[DSC]

1337 Dr1ft3r y0!

5spd would be better I guess. Assumeing the 2 trannys are the same size, the one with more gears would have to make the gears smaller to fit...so the 6spd would be weaker than the 5spd.

Edit: wow, way late one that one...what i get for hitting reply and walking away, then typing when i came back.

[AKADriver]

More gears in the same space is the complaint about the 6 speed, but not in terms of strength.

The S15 6 speed is a close ratio box... meaning its 6th gear is not much taller than the 5 speed's 5th.  More gears in the same amount of space.  Driving my stock KA I never find the revs dropping too much on an upshift... it's never hard to keep the car in the powerband.  I don't need closer ratios.  An SR with the stock turbo shouldn't need them either, and reviews of the S15 seem to support this.

Now a high winding NA engine or an engine with a big turbo that spools slowly might need those ratios...  Which is exactly why Autech used the 6-speed in their version of the S15 (200hp NA SR20DE).

If you have to ask "which is better for drifting" then there's clearly a lot about the subjects of both gearing and drifting you have left to learn.  The answer is highly dependent on particular car/engine combinations and your own personal driving style.

[nizmo s14]

TNX. I got my answer here.