If i were you i would not go with an intense tranny. Quite a few guys ran these a few years ago and most had issues. Mainly with the differentials if i remember right. I had a friend of mine who spent 14k in mods all from intense. Blew his engine three times and his tranny twice. Ended up selling and almost getting in a divorce. I recommend looking into a zzp tranny. That isthe companyi have come to the conclusion of trusting the most for all my 3800 needs.As far as tranny ratings this is from their website:

ZZPerformance works with Certified Transmission to do our work. Certified has been in business for 65 years.The owner, Steve, has over 25 years experience himself!Five years ago we began working with Steve for our 4t65e-HD race transmissions. Since then, he has completed over 200 high performance GTP transmissions including our two9 second GPs as well as manyten and eleven-second cars! Steve is without a doubt the nation's best4t65e-HD transmission builder.[/align]A stock GTP transmission is usually good for mid 13's continuous use. We rate our base transmission for 13.0 continuous use. By upgrading to one of our 245mm torque converters our transmissions are rated forupper 12'scontinuous use. We recommend that all cars with over 75k miles upgrade their converter.Adding the input shaft lowers the ET rating to mid 12's continuous use. After that our next recommendation is the single chain/gear conversion which makes the continuous use rating drop to low 12's. For a reliable transmission with an 11 second continuous use rating we recommend adding the Meziere flex plate, chrome moly pump shaft and upgraded output shaft.
Our ratings are for continuous use and serve as a guideline only. We give conservative guidelines to error in the side of caution. We find that customers are happiest when our products exceed expectations. It's this philosophy that has helped us maintain the highest transmission reliability of any 3800 vendor.

As far as your gears question here is the best answer i could find:
Generally speaking, steeper gear ratios will improve your acceleration and E.T., while reducing your fuel economy and trap speeds. In round numbers, each gear step (from 2.93:1 to 3.29:1 for example) will reduce your quarter mile E.T. by about a tenth of a second and your trap speed by about 1.0 MPH. Your engine speed (RPM) will increase by about 13% at any given vehicle speed and your gas mileage will be reduced by about 5%. Changing from 2.93:1 to 3.69:1 gears will approximately double all the effects listed in this paragraph

 

You have a ZZPerformance Tranny? I have also heard the same thing. Maybe it is time to consider ZZP and leaving Intense out of the equation....

 

I would so leave Intense out. ZZP does the best work.

 

well heck Dan, I wish you woulda told me that sooner lol

How're you comin on that clip?