Krystal

Everything comes back to how much are you willing to spend and change.

4.11s can make for great acceleration if other things are changed........but would be even less than USELESS in a bone stock '79.

The L82 and base motor are both GARBAGE with a pathetic cam profile tuned more for meeting emissions standards than they are for power or top end. Then there is that 1:1 final gear in the transmission. 4.11s in a stock car would just BLOW big big time.

On the flip side?

If you could see spending a few more dollars on a decent engine with some actual power and it makes it's power where it's supposed to for performance you could build a better drag strip car with 4,11s.

Spend a little more still and with an Overdrive transmission you could keep your highway cruising speed sanity.

Krystal

"A guy" was wrong. Where in that simple math is consideration for tire size?

Krystal

If you're running a healthy 383........4.11s seem completely unnecessary unless you can run enough tire to actually "Hook up". My car runs a 383, an automatic with a 2,500 stall converter and on 275\40/17 street tires a standing start with 3.08s only produces crazy tire destroying wheel spin all the way through 1st gear if you don't lift. Slicks are the only way to reduce the problem to something that begins to resemble an actual 1/4 mile run worth talking about. 4.11s? I can only imagine the problems it would create in my car as it sits. Useless on street tires and probably tough to hook up even on slicks without off-sett trailing arms that would allow for a much larger tire that I can fit to the car. This kind of traction and power together would likely add up to lot's of broken pieces in the rear of the car unless you are willing to make some serious changes there too.

The Money Pit

Practical and Corvette in the same sentence? Seriously??????????

I ran 3.70 gears in my 80 for twenty years. Initially with the 350 and a fairly smallish cam I averaged 17 mpg commuting 400 miles a week to work. Keep the speeds around 60 mph, you'll see 3000 on the tach. Then it was my daily driver. Over time I got the bug, and put in a 406. bigger cam,....blew three trannies sorting things out, and after tuning to perfection now get about 12 mpg, but sometimes see 7000 on the tach.
How's that for practical?

Right now I'm in the process of swapping in 4.11 gears, along with a ton more mods. The car hardly gets driven anymore, just a toy,....so practical? Who cares.

73C34me