Nice work, Tom...and thanks for the link!
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It turns out that my car... is especially suited for modifying top gear. The transversely mounted transaxle has a 5th gear mounted *outside* the main transmission housing and bearings. This means that I can change the 5th gear ratio without removing the transmission from the vehicle.
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This feature is common to many FWD transaxles, including some of those from Mitsubishi and VW. Basically, any FWD gearbox family that came in 4-sp and 5-sp versions usually uses this design approach to minimize tooling costs.
I swapped in taller 5th gears in two of my cars this same way, except that in their cases, taller true 5th gearsets are available without having to machine and weld up 2nd gears.
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Best tank ever: 72.1 mpg in February 2005, Seattle to S.F.
New personnal best 'all-city' tank June '08 ... 61.9 mpg!
Thanks to 'pulse-n-glide' technique.