Better performance : Differential or new carburator?

You hit the nail in the sentence, "I find the accelerating too slow from a stop, but there is a lot of power at high speeds... " That's the tipoff for need for gears... of course, then you'll want the 4 bbl anyway.. but the increase in CFM will make no difference until you get the rpm's up. If you dont have the intake cycles resulting from RPM, the air doesnt flow. But if I were you, I'd go for something around 3.3:1, becuase you are now a lot lower than that .. I bet your current ratio is around 2.7 something. The higher the rpm, lower the gas economy.

Remember it's a combination of rear gears, lower trans gears and converter stall speed.

In city driving, the motor will force less from a stop, so the fuel economy should be better?

The ideal would be to change the overdrive gear in the trans, but it's too complicated!

I wouldn't expect much increase in fuel mileage from the gear swap. 3.50:1 is a nice all around ratio, you will feel it more than 3.23:1 from what you're at now. The overdrive trans ought to keep your mileage good on the highway (still ought to be better than if you had no overdrive).

A carb and intake upgrade _could_ increase fuel mileage over a 2 barrel. If the new carbs primaries are smaller than the 2 barrel or you get a spreadbore (like the old QuadraJets) and you keep the CFM fairly low you could increase mileage all around. It must be a vacuum secondary carb though (you know that), as a double pumper will just kill mileage. A new intake is likely be more efficient than the stock one as well.

Either way, gears are always the best *bang* for the buck. D> In city driving, the motor will force less from a stop, so the fuel