Just Day dreaming

[dirtautoguy]

I have a 1996 Chevy k1500 Rcsb that I bought in highschool and I love the truck. I have put way to much time into it to sell and have no wishes to sell and drive it to work everyday . However bottom line is our family is outgrowing it both in passenger capacity and towing capacity....

My favorite body style is the gmt400 I would love to stay in that body family but 4 door models in decent shape are fairly hard to find.

So this has me day dreaming about what to do to remedy this problem and these are some ideas I came up with:

GMT400 options:
Crew cab in decent shape with 454

Crewcab without a power train and transplant a 8.1 ls In it

Crew cab with bad power train and transplant a 6.0 in it

Crewcab with bad power train get a 383 stroker put in it

Any of these options I think would be pretty cool and I believe they would mount up to the 4l80e? Correct me if I’m wrong

Gmt800 options

Pretty much the same 3/4 or maybe 1ton with 6.0, 8.1 or if I came across the right deal a duramax.

What are your experiences with any of these combos? I’m not ready to do it right this second but I have been watching around.

The part that bothers me is I won’t be able to park it in the garage so it will be sitting a lot. It would mostly get used in the summer and fall for hunting/camping/fishing and that sort of thing so it doesn’t need to be in pristine condition pretty decent would be good.

We don’t have kids right now but we plan too and we have 2 dogs so the regular cab gets a little cramped but if I had a bigger truck I could drive the one I got to work and use the bigger one for playing

 

[skylark]

I have a 1996 Chevy k1500 Rcsb that I bought in highschool and I love the truck. I have put way to much time into it to sell and have no wishes to sell and drive it to work everyday . However bottom line is our family is outgrowing it both in passenger capacity and towing capacity....

My favorite body style is the gmt400 I would love to stay in that body family but 4 door models in decent shape are fairly hard to find.

So this has me day dreaming about what to do to remedy this problem and these are some ideas I came up with:

GMT400 options:
Crew cab in decent shape with 454

Crewcab without a power train and transplant a 8.1 ls In it

Crew cab with bad power train and transplant a 6.0 in it

Crewcab with bad power train get a 383 stroker put in it

Any of these options I think would be pretty cool and I believe they would mount up to the 4l80e? Correct me if I’m wrong

Gmt800 options

Pretty much the same 3/4 or maybe 1ton with 6.0, 8.1 or if I came across the right deal a duramax.

What are your experiences with any of these combos? I’m not ready to do it right this second but I have been watching around.

The part that bothers me is I won’t be able to park it in the garage so it will be sitting a lot. It would mostly get used in the summer and fall for hunting/camping/fishing and that sort of thing so it doesn’t need to be in pristine condition pretty decent would be good.

We don’t have kids right now but we plan too and we have 2 dogs so the regular cab gets a little cramped but if I had a bigger truck I could drive the one I got to work and use the bigger one for playing

I would consider a crew with a Cummins swap to get fuel economy and power or a Tahoe/Yukon because they are short.