[AcampoDave]

The first gear on the 3 line is very deep. Its designed for a highway friendly rear gear ratio like a 2.76 or to a lesser degree a 3.08. On your more high winding rearends you'll essentially be skipping 1st gear most of the time, or doing the ol' first, third, fourth..
After I switched from a 2.76 to a 3.08 with my 3 ring, I felt like I was driving a bus. You know, shifting to second halfway across an intersection. I put the 2.76 back in. As near as I could tell the 3 ring was used in light duty gas mileage cars like the Chevy Vega and the Pontiac Sunbird. The internals themselves aren't inferior to the other versions with different ring counts, but the Geez is right about them being weaker because the lower ratios exert more force against the components.