You should try and figure out your rear end gear ratio in order to find the correct tranny combo. You can talk all the gas mileage you want but unless you know what you have the prediction will turn out w/ a better guess. Long hiway mileage needs a higher (2.70-3.20??) rear end. You will lose some gearing for power & towing but where you live it's pretty flat.

See::
http://www.smokemup.com/auto_math/index.php#3
and do the calculations


my $.02


Gooday
Jim

small wheel moves by fire and rod,
big wheel fires by the grace of god,
everytime that wheel turns round,
bound to cover just a little more ground.