If all you are changing in your setups is the gearbox, you are missing out on picking up a lot of pace! In particular at Rio, diff settings and caster/camber settings can gain you a lot of time!
If you don't want to fiddle with the other settings and are on Live, you can also download other people's setups for your cars off the leaderboards... so if you are having problems in the Cobra Cup, just go to that leaderboard and try a couple of the top people's setups to find one you like!