Overdrive is not God.

It actually makes more sense to run a 1:1 High gear and get the right gear ratio in the rear.

For example, 3.54 gears are stronger than 4.10s, everything else being equal.

Spinning the driveshaft really fast gets you nothing except more chances of harmonics wrecking the shaft.

These are all mechanical engineering facts, not opinions. Everything can be crutched, of course, by material choice or dimensional changes.

I remember the first 440 six-pack road test I ever read, the author complained about the "sword-in-stone" shifter. But I blame that on the Inland Shifter. Plenty of Hemi 4-speeds have gone fast on the strip

I think the original Doug Nash/Richmond 5-speed with 3.something First gear and 1:1 Fifth could have been the answer, if all the kinks had been worked out of it.

The thought that you need more than 4 speeds in a street car with 540 inch motor is ludicrous, unless your torque curve has only about a 1000 rpm flat spot..

Every time one of these posts come up, the answer posts are pretty much word-for-word the same as the last 50 or so.

Boring!

R.