We have a back highway that believe it or not the police let someof us try are best at quarter mile racing. In the past I have turned 103.4 as my best time with lows of 98. Yesterday I tried something different. My 305 tranny doesn't have a shift kit and I usually put it into low gear until It reaches 5,000 prm's and the shift it into drive. I wanted to see what the difference was leaving it into drive only and letting the tranny shift it's normal shift pont of 4,000RPM. I sure didn't realise the big difference that It showed. Leaving it in drive I turned 88mph. The next time around using low gear it was 100.2. Now this is using a stop watch and the road is probably not quite even and we use a starter with a flag, but again the big difference was the rpm's lost in not having a shift kit. I also am losing probably about a second without some good heads as mine are stock except for a mild porting. This 305 of mine is a pretty stout little engine and I usually put around 1500 miles on it during the summer, but I also race it a dozen times each summer with no probelms at all and all my racing is with very high gears of 2:76 on street tires.