i went the other way and lowered the front by one tooth to get better excel, in 6th gear i can do 86 mph before vtec kicks in. it kicks in around 87 mph (87 gps indicated true, 95 speedo indicated, the stock speedo is off by 10%) 1 tooth down in the front is a 6% over all change. what kind of RPM/MPH in 6th are you going for?,
at corrected 55mph i am turning about 4k we ran through south dakota a couple weeks ago. speed limit out there is 75, traffic was runing at 90mph on my speedo (not corrected mph) that seemed awfully high rpm to sustain between fuel stops
Mpg isn't that bad if you can keep it out of vtec, also changing the front sprocket is really easy, and they are cheap. ~$25
