[Formulajones]

Originally Posted by scott70

Most of my highway driving has a speed limit of 60 which means I drive at around 65 mostly. Only occasionally do I go on I95 which is a limit of 70. Before my post I went on the wallace site and plugged in a bunch of different senarios but I wanted to hear what real world experiences were from you guys. Didnt want the car running like a high idle at 60-65 mph,,,I dont mind some rpm ,,,2800 cruising is just a bit much for me. Also the 2.87 VS 2.20 with my 3.31 gears sounded like a nice change for taking off whether its a hard or easy take off. With the iron exhaust manifolds it dynoed 480ish hp and 560 trq. Headers it was a little over 490 hp and 570 trq. I do play at the 1/8th mile now and then on bfg t/a street tires and the 2,20 1st gear sucks.

Yes I would definitely have a custom driveshaft done and not cut up my original. Also my original shifter was mentioned. On mine the chrome handle isnt a simple bolt on. and the rear gear ratio and back tire size are not going to change.

We do a lot of driving with ours on 65 mph roads, which is only 1800 rpm (.64 overdrive, 3.55's, and 27" tire) and the 302 is fine with it. 70 mph is roughly 2000 rpm if I want to squeak a little more in a 65 zone. On the major highways it's 75mph here and I can easily float along at 2200-2300 going 75-80mph but the best part is that it will knock down just over 21 mpg whether I'm doing 65 or 80, it doesn't really care. What many also forget is how quiet the car is now that the engine isn't buzzing 3000 rpm down the freeway. The lower you keep the rpm the quieter the car is. I even find myself using 5th gear in the 35-45 mph zones all the time.

Your 455 makes a ton of grunt and should not have a single issue lugging your car around at lower rpm, even below those highway speeds.
No worries on the chrome handle if it's the factory push in Hurst style. They do reproduce the round bar handles that bolt on to the aftermarket Hurst and Tremec shifters. I run one in the Z since the original Hurst shifter has that push in handle and I didn't want to modify that, those original sticks with the specific Hurst part number on them bring some serious coin. Plus I wanted to save all that with the Muncie and driveshaft as a package deal since it's born with that car.