I wanted the thrill of banging through the gears in my Camaro so I looked around and found a junked 83 Firebird minus engine with a t-5 and 3.73 gears with rear disks. I currently am running 3.08 and was wondering if it will even be worth my effort to change to the 3.73 and how bad will it effect my highway drivability.

 

Of course it's "worth it", TO ME, because it's YOUR money.

Seriously, you won't believe the difference. It'll be like a whole other car.

I doubt it will affect your gas mileage too strongly. My car came with that gear stock; it regularly got about 22 mpg highway, and 17 or so city, when new.

 

i went from 3.27s to 3.73s and it was a huge difference.

 

It isn't gonna hurt you much in mileage too much. My 87 Monte Carlo has stock 3.73s and still gets around 21 highway, so you'll be a doing a little beter than that in a lighter, more aerodynamic F-body. With a T-5 you'll be spinning just under 3 grand at 70mph with a 3.73.

It will make you much faster though. My monte's got a stock L69 & turbo 200 and can easily beat stock 305 TPI's cause it's got a 3.73 posi while most F-bodies are stuck with 3.23s or 3.08s

 

I just finished the swap last weekend and what a difference! Only thing is now I have to save the money for limited slip to keep from roasting my cobras!

 

you want a difference? i went from 2:73 to 3:73, totally different car...