Unless you're going to be driving local (45 MPH or less) roads 90+% of the time I would strongly recommend not going any higher than 3.91 or 4.10. I've run both in my Roadrunner through the years and even the rpms at 55 gets old after a while. I just didn't like running that many rpms all the time. Thats why I switched back & forth between a 3.23 chunk and the steeper geared chunk depending on whether it was racing season or not, I was driving extra for school or work, etc. When I lived in the 'country' in middle Georgia I could deal with the steeper gears, when we moved to suburbs in Atlanta and I was doing regular highway driving the 3.23 chunk went in & stayed in. I've heard others say they don't mind the higher rpms and that it doesn't hurt the engine but for me it was unnecessary wear & tear on what was a pretty expensive motor for the time. That's why have plans for either a TKO 5 speed OD transmission or a Gear Vendor Gear Splitter with either a 3.91 or 4.10 rear gear for the Bird. I'm not sure if I'd want to go back to swapping the chunks out, when I was 17 it was no big deal, now crawling under the car is not as easy or fun as it used to be!
Later, Jim