[Jim-Bob]

Just remember that no matter what you do to that A body it will never have the mileage potential of a 1.6 liter/5speed Sentra. The Dart/Duster is about as aerodynamic as a brick wall and has too much weight to haul around. Plus, the A-833/OD has a terrible ratio spread and was one of those stop-gap measures (like the Ford SROD) of the late 70's to try and get more mileage out of old parts rather than just designing new ones.

If anything I would consider a Borg Warner T-5 behind the /6, but I don't know if you can find a bellhousing ( try Keisler engineering). If you do, consider the T-5 from behind either a 4 cylinder Mustang or a 4.3 V6 S-10. (GM and Ford used different bolt patterns on their T-5's). It will have a deeper 1st gear to get the leaning tower of power moving but should still have a 25-30% overdrive ratio. The GM 60 degree V6 T-5 is set up the same way but uses a unique input shaft length that likely will not be covered in the conversion bellhousing.

As for cheap EFI, it's gonna be hard to do on the /6. You will have to fabricate an intake manifold adapter for the throttle body off of another vehicle. Supposedly the GM TBI is not that complicated, but you will run right smack up against the lack of a ignition module signal that the system needs to determine when to fire the injector. Alternately, you could run it off of a Megasquirt (or the Spectre variant of it) which does not need to touch the ignition. The early (89-91) 3 cylinder Metro also does not read the ignition and uses a standard distributor, but I do not know how you would go about calibrating the ECU for an engine 4x larger. It may just work by using a bigger injector ( I would try the TBI off of a GM 4.3 V6) but it may not.

I'll also say that you should get something extremely efficient NOW or as soon as you can find it. Gas prices will soon spike again and some believe they will hit $5 a gallon this time. By the time everyone wakes up to this fact it will be too late and you won't be able to touch a good 90's economy car for less than $5,000. All the SUV owners will suddenly develop what I like to call "Metro-envy" and buy up these old gems in a panic like they did last time. The only thing is that this time the prices will NOT come back down as this time it is not a speculative bubble. Instead, it is being driven by a dollar weakened by the irresponsible quantitative easing strategy which has seen the US Treasury DOUBLE the number of US dollars in circulation since 2009. This will seriously undermine the currency and is one of the main reasons why food and commodity prices are already spiking. Get one now if you can. It will act as a hedge to protect you from what is to come.