rear gearing with a four speed A833.
The four speed was designed for strength and for small engines to multiply torque faster.
I'm not trying to turn this into a pissin match, but this statement is incorrect. Automatics were actually designed as torque multipliers. Torque converters are THE torque multipliers. The OD 4 speeds almost always had a 3.55 gear. That's about the best gear for them.
A 2.76 gear with an OD will be either just at the beginning or out of your engine's power band. Either way will result in a combination that lugs along in high gear at cruise speed. That's not good for the engine or economy.
If you look at 4 speed applications through history, they almost always had lower (numerically higher) gears than automatics. This is because they do not have a torque multiplier (converter) they have to rely on better leverage.
Believe it or not, even with a 2.76 gear, that 3.09 first gear will have a much harder time getting the car moving than if it had a 3.55, which is designed to go with the ratios in the OD transmission. Lots of people even go to 3.91s or 4.10s and are happy.
Lastly, the "jump" from one gear to the next in that OD 4 speed with a 2.76 gear ain't gonna be fun either. You're gonna have to twist first gear up pretty good to keep the momentum going shifting into second. You're talking about going from 3.09 to 1.67. LOL That's a huge jump, but good luck with that.
