2.66 low gear vs close ratio
I personally hate my A833 OD, except when on the interstate cruising at 70mph. My combo isn't optimal however. I've got the OD behind a stock 170cuin slant six, 3.55 rear gear and 24" tires. First gear isn't bad, the jump to second is a bit much, going to 3rd feels like you missed a gear, and going to 4th is useless if less than 55mph.
I'm sure it would be better if I had the torquier 225, or a steeper rear gear.
I agree, your combo is not optimal. Only way to solve it is to put a cam in it that generates more torque at a lower rpm to compensate for the large drop in rpm between shifts or switch to a steeper rear gear to help with torque multiplication. Or ditch the Slant altogether and build a small-block stroker...
Honestly, I never fully understood what 'torque down low' meant until I experienced it first hand at cruising speed in my truck. When a car falls on it's face after a gear change it's because of lack of torque, plain and simple.
My Duster suffered from a lack of torque but in a different manner which was off the line. It's a manual valve body automatic and it had a low gear set in it; 2.74 1st, 1.54 2nd. Motor was a high-winding 340 which did not generate big torque 'down low'. Once you were past 2,500 rpm (which was like instantly), you were off and it pulled hard to 7,200 and the torque didn't matter so much.
But, it definitely needed a steep rear gear to get it out of the hole. My 60ft times at the track suffered some when I took out the 4.30 gear and put a 4.10 in it, even though it was only a 5% change. I drove the car 80 miles one way to the track through NYC traffic so a 4.30 gear was not practical. 4.10 was about the absolute limit but the trade off hurt the overall combo.
Just to add a note here. Sometimes we fight an uphill battle with parts that were designed 40 years ago for every day driving. Factory engineering in passenger cars is and has always been a compromise and/or trade off between a certain amount of performance, comfort, drivabilty and economy. Performance does not generally come without some degree of noise, vibration and harshness. These things are a big factor to car makers, people hate N/V/H. I was a dealership tech for several years, most of the complaints that came in had to do with one of these conditions. We had several classes training us about NVH.
So to decrease complaints and unnecessary service, car makers design stuff so people literally don't notice the car when they are driving it. You definitely notice when a car is built without compromise - lumpy cams, loud exhaust, gear noise, neck-snapping shifts at speed, stiffer suspensions and way more mechanical noise. It's a totally different driving experience which requires more attention than your average driver is willing to devote to their car. Performance always suffers because of this because you wind up with a compromised combination of parts.
