Shop the large inventory of car and truck parts including GM manual transmission parts!. You are putting together a mean machine, and only one thing is missing - the transmission. With a Chevy 5-speed transmission, your machine — and your mechanical prowess — is mean, indeed. What Is a Five-Speed Car? If a car is described as "five-speed," that means it has a manual transmission with five forward gears. Most cars have five gears, which is why the term has come to represent manual transmissions, but there are high-performance vehicles with six gears on the market. What Is a 5-Speed Shiftable Automatic Transmission? by Michael Ryan A 5 speed shiftable automatic transmission provides the ease of use offered by an automatic transmission coupled with the sportiness and increased fuel economy offered by a manual transmission. Its not a 5 speed. Its a 4 speed A-604 transmission. That much of an increase in rpm's sounds like there is a problem in overdrive. Its time for a trans shop to scan the TCM for codes, CVI values, and to see whether the condition is computer commanded. transman Hey got a question about these transmissions. I tried searching the forum first and came up with nothin, and even tried searchin the internet before i asked what might seem a stupid question. I had never heard of this till the other day when one popped up in the classifieds. What does anyone know about the chevy manual three speed with overdrive. What disadvantages a car with 4-speed transmission have compared to 5, 6 or 7 speed with similar engine? but I have driven the 5 speed manual one and it was OK. Is it because of the smaller engine or the 4 speed transmission? the top gearing for most automatic overdrive transmissions are What Does 6-Speed Mean? These transmissions feature closer gear ratios than a five-speed manual unit, allowing the driver to stay within the engine's ideal rpm range. Also, the sixth forward gear allows highway cruising without making the engine work so hard. How to Use the Overdrive Published on Sep 5, 2015 This Is the difference between having overdrive On/Off. basically overdrive keeps the car in a higher gear saving gas and keeping the rpm's low. How Overdrives Work, And Why They're Not A Thing Anymore. Only seen now in older cars, the overdrive system was the precursor to transmissions with over four gears The "Doug Nash 4+3," a four-speed manual on the Chevrolet Corvette with push-button overdrive in the top three gears, is considered by many to be one of those bits of questionable equipment Manual mode actually provides more control than traditional shiftable automatics, because it lets you choose a single gear and keep it there. Think of it this way: If you shift into "3" on that old-school 4-speed automatic, it simply tells the transmission, "Don't go higher than 3."