1963 fairlane gets its first street gear

[e philpott]

after 17 years I decided to put my first street gear ratio in the Fairlane .... I ve had 4.86 , 4.56 and 4.11 gears but this is the first time I ever installed a 3.?? something gear and Detriot locker ...... I bought one of those Nascar gears from Rich at FE dot com , a 3.70 Richmond gear with the REM finish on it (looks like a chrome gear), bought a used locker a few years back and finally got around to installing them both and am very pleased with the turn out .... gear is quiet and locker works great , smoother than the shimmed up posi I had for street previously ..... with a 29.1 tall tire 2500 rpm is 55mph and 2950 rpm is 70 mph , basically a 450 rpm drop from my 4.11's ..... also seems to bring the coolant temp down a little lower at cruise rpm with my 1/2 filled bock so thats a plus too , the 2.78 first gear top loader still takes off good in traffic with the 3.70's inspite of a Dove single 4 intake , big 266/276 at .050 cam and 13 pound aluminum flywheel ... maybe not the average cruiser but its the most cruiser its ever been since I built it ......

my next project, I'm looking foward to installing my med 2x4 intake and 600 Holley's to pick up the low end power and fuel mileage .... the last two tank fulls of gas were 6.8 and 6.6 miles per gallon with the 4.11 gear , so we will see what the 3.70 does for mileage here in a few weeks , would love to see 12 plus mpg with the 2x4's , that would be a 100 percent increase in fuel mileage ...lol

[drdano]

You could probably pick up a few mpg with an overdrive 5speed, but one gets into the argument of cost...how many extra mpgs = new 5-speed?     Sounds like a sweet ride with that big cam.

[e philpott]

I have trouble deciding race or street ..... street wise if I could do a do-over , I would get a face plated 2nd, 3rd and 4th TKO 600 with .64 OD gear from Liberty ..... but a little late for that , the MPG is really better than I posted because the speedo reads 5 mph less than actual when I'm  going  55 mph so that hurts the figures a little ..... I will get more speedo gears from Mac soon to correct that problem , I have a 21 , 20 and 19 tooth (19 tooth currently), I think its going to take a 17 or 16 tooth cable gear to correct

[machoneman]

Nice.

But if $ permit and you still have those 4-series gears, a Richmond 5 speed or the TKO 5-6 speed tranny would give you the best of both words. With a 1:1 toploader 4th, that near 3,000 rpm at 70 mph is still pretty high for regular highway use. A step down 5th or 5th/6th gear would get you another 600-700 rpm drop.