229 gear
- Thread starter Ray G W
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Pretty tall gear. What do you want? Performance, mileage? live in a hilly or mountain area? Lock up converter on the 350 trans? Stock motor? daily driver?
Depends on your torque converter. With a stock 1600-1800 stall, it won't slip as much as a high stall converter. If you use a high stall converter, all you are going to do is roast the transmission. When I first bought my Cutlass, had built 350 with a turbo 350 and 2.29 gears. Trans had a 3000 stall converter. It was almost intolerable. Swapped to a 2400 stall converter and 3.73 gears. Much better, but if you are cruising, a 3.08 or 3.23 gearset would be much more tolerable on the highway. Right now I run about 3300rpm at 60(ish) on the highway.
When I was running a 3 spd (looooong time ago) I had a 400 Pontiac on both the little 241 then a 3.08. honestly the 3.08 was about as far as I wanted to be on a 3 spd. It was a DD and I never liked the highway rpm. I run a 3.23 right now with a t5 which puts me right back to where you are with that 2.29. the compromise you have to settle for is either better out of the hole performance or highway cruising. The 350 has a tall first gear so you will be miserable at a stop light. The big gear out back solves that but then 80 mph for a long time means a lot of rpm. A tall tire will help but then you suffer down low again. As was noted earlier, are you looking for a stop light brawler or a high way star?
The 3.08 is a fair compromise. Your Big Buick will never hook up with the big gear anyway
The 3.08 is a fair compromise. Your Big Buick will never hook up with the big gear anyway
Put it behind a prius, you'll already want to kill yourself anyways and it's not like performance will suffer.
So you saying that u did not like the 229. Well I'm going from a342 I just don't like 342 around town maybe my 15 inch tires are to short
If this a daily driver, then the 229 will make you BB feel like a 305 IMO. The converter, already mentioned, is the key to having a tall gear drive decently.
Don't fall for the notion that a higher stall converter will drive badly - the only stall converters that create an issue are low budget ones.
A 2.29 gear with any amount of torque and a heavy foot will smoke the t-350. I put a 406 in my 79 years and years ago It was nothing fast, eventually went 13.60's with a 3.73 gear but with the factory rear turned the fluid in the t-350 black.
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