Greetings to all and sundry; I'm new to this board, and come seeking advice and information.
I'm currently just finishing up one project (a '67 Corvair with a 500 Cadillac in the back seat) and am starting the next project. That next project consists of a 1938 Dodge dump truck cab, which I will be planting on an ex-forest service '82 Chevy 1 ton dually flatbed chassis.
Since my wife and I plan to use the '38 as a tow vehicle, we intend to equip it for highway use pulling a heavy trailer with all pertinent comforts, e.g. air conditioning. I'm now in the process of slicing the '38 cab in half to lengthen it for a bit more interior room.
The '82 came with a 292 six which runs great; we drove it home from Colorado after our car was wrecked, but that is yet another story. Because we would like to be different, we intend to retain the six.
I figure that to serve as a good highway tow vehicle, we need 300 to 350 HP, and so had planned to build the engine as a basically stock unit with a turbo, similar TRowe's pretty powerplant. For this application, I expect that reliability is more important than acheiving every single horsepower.
Because the chassis short-geared (4.56, IIRC)we plan to replace the existing non-OD 4 speed with a hydraulic 700R4. Still, the engine will be running at fairly high RPM on a sustained basis. Would I be better off switching to a 250 crank? I won't really need huge torque as the 700R4 has such short first gear, as well as the final ratio being so short.
Whether 292 or 250, I know that I'll need good forged pistons; I haven't yet been able to find sources for same, and would appreciate pointers. Likewise, I'll probably go with good aftermarket forged rods, and again, guidance would be appreciated. Selecting the cam, the valve train, the degree of headwork, the compression ratio, and so on all need to be decided; likewise all such decisions lie far outside my experience.
Once stripping the Chevy cab off the chassis has been completed, I'll need to leave the engine in place for a while to help locate the transplant cab. This means that it will be a while before I need to begin engine rebuilding, but I would like to start the planning process. Some things, like mounting location for the intercooler will impact cab bodywork, and so must be preplanned.
Any and all thoughts and advice would be appreciated.
