[Ol'Jim]

Originally Posted by pitts64

I always liked having a rear end ratio like 3:08 or 2:73 with the transmissions top gear 1:1. Then have a low first gear like 3.20 to one. This way the driveshaft isn't spinning like crazy as it does with a Overdrive with 4.11 or 4.56 rear end..

I had a 64 Pontiac with a 2.56 and a Turbo 400 with a custom made 2.75 first gear. Wow was that a nice set up.

I don't see the need for having 5 or 6 speeds with a healthy V-8 with a wide lobe separation angle cam.

Lots of good advice in the reply by Pitts64.
If you have a cam with a wide powerband, then a 4 Speed trans with wide-ratio gearing like a Muncie M-21 should be fine. Especially with a reasonable rear gear. And if you are not drag racing, then you most likely won't be dumping the clutch at 6,000 RPM or speed-shifting at full throttle, so a T5 would do just fine. Those are the 2 things that will kill a marginal manual tranny.