Happy B day Mike. I think a solution to the low fifth is to take a 2nd gear "set" swap them around and put them in place of 5th. Not positive on accuracy, but this should get you down in the low 2k range at 65mph.

Re: Mikey's B-day/Dad's present to self....it's a V8!!!!
 

Mike that chuckle and wave... I nearly blew my breakfast out my nose....http://www.pelicanparts.com/support/smileys/lol2.gif

Happy happy!

2nd gear is fixed on the input shaft of the 901. Unless you can find a very rare and expensive racing version of the input shaft you can't play with 2nd gear at all.
if I remember correctly either 3rd or 4th is used in the flipped position to make 5th gear higher.

And I never could figure out the logic of removing or locking out first gear. Why in the world do they do that? I know it is the weak link, the obvious solution is to just don't use it under full power.
1st gear is very useful to pull into the garage or to put the car on a trailer, it just takes a bit of self control not to use it to do burnouts.
Besides, on my V8 914 I prefered second gear for the burnouts because I could get more tire smoke ;)

Mike, Don't sweat 47 I am right there with you in November.

1957 Just a Baby!

September 16, 1957 here.

Happy B'day and very cool car. Congrats.

You can flip gears ??????

I have not personally done it, but but I was told by Scott Mann at Renegade that one of the gear sets (either 3rd or 4th) can be assembled in reversed order to obtain a higher ratio.
In other words, put the output gear on the input shaft and versa visa.
Obviously if a gear set has an established wear pattern installing it in a different orientation could cause unusual wear or noise.
If I were to do it i would prefer to use a new gear set unless i had a set that was in near new condition.

I still think that a R&P swap on a known GOOD 901 trans would be the easier swap.....

Are those terms mutually inclusive?

well we need more pics of the monster!