I like to race online and am currently racing alot in the UF 1000. (I know...that's weak....but I try to master one car at a time.) Long story short, I have tinkered and tinkered with my track-specific setups (over 100's of laps) and I am pretty happy with them as they are fairly forgiving and responsive to my particular driving style. However, the main problem I have is in the gearing. I think I have a pretty decent setup, but when I start a race against real folks, they always finish way ahead of me. I can hang with them good in the corners but they always seem to pull away from me with their superior acceleration and top speeds...often having lap times of a good 3-7 seconds faster than me. I have read a lot of information in the forums/manual/websites on how to tune gear ratios, but I have not had any luck when I try to do it myself. Any good pointers/tips? Whatever I am doing is NOT working and I am getting sorta frustrated. (P.S. My camber and toe settings are not drastic as I know that the my contact patch would affect overall grip, acceleration, and braking. My tire temp's are really close across the board.)
Any help would be appreciated...especially a good gear setup for Fern Bay Green. Maybe it would give me a good place to start.

some quick pointers;
always watch when the car has its most power, in this case its 3009 (max torque) and 5589 (max hp) for the UF1.
set ur gearing that way that u dont need to exceed the max power too much to get some accleration. imo for almost every car (including UF1, excluding BF1, FO8) u can go about 500 rpm higher than the limit without noticable power loss = 6100.
when u shift u shouldnt try to get too close to max torque, more about 4000 rpm in that case.
i hope u get what i mean, having a hard time to explain that today
also, try to avoid shifting uphill, better make the gearing a little longer that u can shift in flat / downhill areas.

It's awkward with the UF1 to get the gearing nice, only 4 gears means they have to be somewhat widely spaced as you can't make 1st too tall or you can't pull away.

Don't forget gearing isn't the only factor influencing straight line acceleration, rolling resistance makes up a fair percentage (at racing speeds, around 10 to 20%) of the resistances on the vehicle, so minimising these helps with straight line speed when power is an issue. Use higher tyre pressures and hybrid tyres to get extra grip without the tyre melting, plenty of negative camber reduces the overall tyre temperatures too so you should be able to run those softer tyres all round overheating (in the UF1 anyway). That should all help increase acceleration without sacrificing too much in the way of cornering speed.

If you're struggling that much maybe posting a replay would help us point out where you're losing the most time, I'm not convinced gearing can be responsible for THAT much time loss.