Street Gear Poll

I agree, Doug. Got 3.73's in both my Ford trucks. One's a direct three speed and the other is a ZF overdrive (one of the worst transmission set ups I've ever owned... first isn't steep enough to be a granny low and the overdrive set might as well be a lock up converter). At 65 the direct drive three speed truck sounds like it's going to come apart and the other one, at 65, has me reaching up and trying to shift into an imaginary 6th gear.

I like 3.55's and 3.23's for anything street driven, but that's me. With the 3.55's behind the 383 the motor hummed but didn't drone at highway speeds, had enough off the line to leave a lot of "performance" cars sitting, and triple digit top ends runs were a blast.

There was a reason the Duster had 3.23's in it. Wasn't afraid to get in the car and drive it to Florida. The 360 had enough power to overcome the gearing that it would pull the headlights out of a lot of big block powered GM's, and the top end was there. Which is where Pop liked his happy spot. Sure, there were a lot of cars out there that would be faster off the line and could beat it in the 1/4, but Pop set the car to run triple digits for mile after mile, not just a 1/4 mile at a time.

I like 'em for longevity, too. High RPM for a long period of time is the death knell of an engine.