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....

 

not that its the same but i had 4.30's in my '06 GT and loved them, still got 24-26 mpg's on trips.

 

Im with gun jam. I have 3.73s with my t5 and drive it hard. I would never want to go any higher. Sometimes think that 4.11s would have been better.

 

Thanks for all the responses!

I'm leaning pretty hard toward the 3.80's now. I was thinking 3.55 before.

 

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.

 

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.

 

My 5th gear is 0.68 and I run a 3.89 rear end with 26.1" tires. I hit 3k rpm somewhere right below 80. It also makes for a fun drive. I do a mix of highway and street race type driving.

James

 

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 ...

 

You dont lose 1st gear, it just reaches the shift point sooner.

You'll like 3.55's, you love 3.80's. I drove yesterday doing 80mph to a show, still around 2500 rpm.

 

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!