I’m past the age of recklessly being a speed demon 99% of the time. Daily commute because it involves some interstate will see 70 mph. That portion of the drive is only about 8 miles. Weekend cruises sometimes involve the toll roads which have an 80 mile an hour speed limit which we usually stay pretty close to. Obviously Okies being what they are the right lanes full of slow pokes in the left is full of people that are in a giant hurry to get nowhere quickly.
Yes I’ve played around with them quite a bit. That’s how I arrived at the two most likely candidates.
Yes I had concerns about being able to pull that 2.41 in overdrive. Engine is a late Monte Carlo SS 305 converted to throttle body
That one surprised me a little bit but I guess in the end it’s no worse than that same combination with a 214 gear that some of them got when they were equipped with a three speed automatic
I think that is the biggest problem. If you gear for 60mph , you will be like me. I go about 10-20 mph over the limit [55mph] and I am the slowest car on the road. If you gear for 80mph and get stuck behind a slowpoke or a cop, you will be lugging the engine if you don't downshift. Not a problem for me with a manual trans, but an automatic will have a hard time. Another thing is your engine. My Pontiac 400's did not like sustained high revs. But my short stroke Pontiac 301 does not care. It may run out of breath but it stays smooth the whole time. When I had 3:73 gears in my '81 Malibu wagon, the 400 revved at almost 5000 just to keep up with traffic. It took a tank of gas to get to Englishtown from Queens, and a tank to get back. Unsustainable. Changing to the 3:23's was like night and day different. I really could have used an overdrive back then.
