Cruising RPM and Manual Trans Options

Yeah, the Passon is a pretty interesting idea. If you look at it one way, most full swap kits will run you about the same amount as the Passon trans, so in the long run you spend around the same amount for roughly the same final goal. The difference being that with the Passon you only get one part for all that money as opposed to a crate of parts, lol. In the long run I'm really hoping to keep this swap under $2500, hopefully even closer to $2000 if I can.

The reality is that there really isn't anything wrong with the 4 speed I have in the car now. I've recently rebuilt it and bought all new linkage and everything. It drives fine and really has pretty nice gear ratios when compared against all the other options. I don't really drive the car on long trips ever, but I don't know if part of the reason is because of the trans. If I want to drive an hour to a car show doing 70 with the engine screaming at 3300 rpm the whole way it might get a little old.

The gas mileage argument is also sort of silly. I laugh at people that buy new cars for gas mileage sometimes because they don't realize they'll never make up the money they spend on a new car in gas unless gas prices get ludicrously high. If I get a 5 mpg increase with an overdrive and drive it every single day to work and back it would take me over 2 years to offset the cost of the swap in gas if prices stay somewhat consistent (and I really only drive it maybe once a week to work, so who knows how long it would take). If I get an increase of 8-10 that would be frickin awesome, but it will still take a while to see the savings. Now go out and trade in your old car and pay $20k on top of that for a new one. Even if you double your gas mileage you may not even own the car long enough to see that money come back to you, though it does depend on how much you drive. In my case, if I cut my gas bill in half every month it would take 20 years to save $20k on gas.