Tests were done on a car with a good converter some years ago and the results showed on that vehicle that 3.55 was the optimum gear for speed vs slippage. There are no cheap options for getting rpm where you indicate you want it (2600?) without tightening the converter and seriously hurting drag strip performance. The best solution that I can think of would be a lockup type converter if anyone makes a unit that would survive what you have for torque. That would require gears, trans, and converter. A power adder of some sort and a tighter converter, with less gear would be a great way to go but expensive. A twinscrew blower makes amazing power and the torque is just like you went up in cubic inches, from about 2200 rpm up. If you set it up for 15 psi boost it will feel and make power like you just doubled the size of the motor. The blower option would require gears a, converter, and a 727 trans as well. If you could get the deal done and tuned for $8,000, that would be cheap for the setup.