[serialk11r]

aardvarcus you're spoiled with a C60. I have C56. 3000rpm in 5th is only 55mph.

More gears is better yes, and I would love to see 7 speed manuals everywhere. However being more realistic, a 6 speed like the C60 is a pretty good compromise for a small 4 cylinder engine. The 6th gear is a proper cruising gear that lets you follow traffic without going too much over 3000rpm (where a lot of engines start to really decline a lot in efficiency at low load due to friction), and the first gear is nice and short for starting and such. You can tip the scales more in the economy direction by making the 6th taller (a 2ZZ powered small car can hit 160mph in 6th with some drag reduction) and spreading 1-5 a little more.

I would be extremely happy with a slightly destroked engine and a C60, it would leave some gas mileage on the table but it would be pleasant to drive and still do okay on the highway. Yea if you wanted maximum gas mileage you could spec a gearbox that lets you do 55mph with 1500rpm (assuming you have a motor that can pull this off, I doubt my 1ZZ can), 5th put you at like 1500rpm for 45mph, and have 4th place you right at like 1200rpm for 25mph, but the giant gear spacing would drive me nuts when shifting and having to downshift to 3rd to accelerate hard would be really weird.