With a mild engine and an automatic in a light car... I went from 3.45 gears to 2.70s, it pulls just as hard from a slow roll and now it's actually comfortable running highway speeds at 3k rpm. Could not be happier with the high gear ratio. But then again I don't care about holeshots, just smooth passing power. I'm not worried about high rpm but the fact is that more rpm is more wear, I like to keep durability in mind...
Thats exactly the point. It doesn't matter what engine a vehicle has..........with a 3:55 rear gear and the same size tires ALL vehicles will be going the same speed. The question is how much gas will the different engines burn doing the same work. Simply adding an overdrive gear completely changes the results and all results are usually going to be beneficial. I think there is somewhat of a trend growing among builders to utilize the benefits of overdrive gearing in their vehicles. Some are still kicking and squealing though........ Taking this a little further........the second Cad engine I build "may" be built with a low compression ratio. The idea is that it would be a lot more driver friendly but still produce gobs of torque. 500 cu in and a 9:1 compression ratio. Thats still higher than GM used in many of them. Throw the 6 speed with 2 overdrives in line behind it and I can run regular gas and still have plenty of performance and cruise and maybe even decent economy. A mile wide power band where you can shift from 1st to 4th when cruising and utilize all the gears when you want performance. I could have used a 5 speed, but wanted the additional torque capacity of the six speed.
The Jalopy Journal
