Which gears?
#11
With the overdrive, and not driving a lot on the highway, and you want the additional acceleration, the 3.80 would get my vote. I run a 3.73 in my 89 with a .68 overdrive, and have been very happy with it. you might want stickier tires....
#15
The overdrive trans lets you have your cake and eat it too..You can run a low rear gear and still get good mileage and low cruise rpms in fifth gear...I would go with 3.80s or 4.11s if you love to accelerate.
#16
For what it's worth...I agree with the folks on the 3.70 to 4.11 ratio for that combination. The overdrive will let you get away with having a low ratio on the open road. I'm currently running a 3.50 gear with a Toploader 4-speed, and without overdrive that's about as low as I'd want to go with my combination and still run it at highway speeds.
#18
I think 4.11 might be a bit too much, given that I will be doing some highway driving. The main thing that bothers me is losing usefulness of 1st gear, that's why I was leaning toward 3.55's in the first place ...
#19
You'll like 3.55's, you love 3.80's. I drove yesterday doing 80mph to a show, still around 2500 rpm.
#20
well said...if you are going to go through the trouble of changing gears you might as well make it noticeable.
I have done 2 gears swaps 2.75s (stock 66 v8) to 3.00 that made no real difference seat of the pants "feel" wise but obviously showed up on my tach with a c4 trans but from 0 to 60 I never noticed anything.
Then when I got the t5 the 3.00 were unacceptable to use 5th I had do 80 and with the taller 1st gear it was a turd off the line and not much fun I drove it this way for a few months then went with the 3.80s... Now that you could feel!
I have done 2 gears swaps 2.75s (stock 66 v8) to 3.00 that made no real difference seat of the pants "feel" wise but obviously showed up on my tach with a c4 trans but from 0 to 60 I never noticed anything.
Then when I got the t5 the 3.00 were unacceptable to use 5th I had do 80 and with the taller 1st gear it was a turd off the line and not much fun I drove it this way for a few months then went with the 3.80s... Now that you could feel!