he everyone, im new to the forum and im buying an 88 K5 this weekend, its in good shape with a rebuilt 700R4 and 350TBI with 79,000. i was thinking about keeping it stock for a while but later on i wanted to build a 383 out of it, any ideas on where to start or special kits to buy?

 

swap the tranny for a 350 turbo if you're going moderate.

 

There is nothing wrong with the 700R4. When built right, they'll hold just as much power as the TH350 and give you a highway gear.

What would you be trying to do with it? We need some general ideas to give you any specifics... If all you are interested in is making the motor into a 383, then you can go with just about any off the shelf 383 stroker kit. Jegs, Summitracing, and a number of other sites like that have kits to accomplish this.

 

modifications......

 

my opinion the 700s did not hold up that well stock. now i've never seen one that was rebuilt for the mud so i cannot say.

 

The 88+ 700R4 is quite reliable so long as you know what you are doing with them.

Anyway... Back to the topic at hand here... Stroker kits. So "modifications" huh. Well, until you know what you want, it is quite difficult for anyone else to know how to help.

 

well to be honest just strength, occasional tow and mud and medium duty wheeling

 

My opinion would be to do simple bolt-on mods and save the internal rework until you need to pop the engine open and rebuild it. Headers, a good exhaust system, and a tune will really wake up the engine. If you want to go deeper, an aftermarket cam added into those three items would be nice as well.

Save up your money for the rebuild to a 383 and try to get enough for a good set of aftermarket heads. Or at the very least, pick up a set of vortec heads.

Check out Thirdgen.org and their TBI tuning section. If you have the desire, you can tune it yourself. There are a lot of free tools available and an extensive community out there to help you along the way. I'll be doing my own tuning once I drop a '90 L05 TBI 350 into my '74 K5.

 

ok, i want to make like 470 to the 38's in the back but dont know if i would have to do extensive tranny work to handle the meat in the rear to to the tire size, then there's ring and pinion's i was thinking richmond 4.11 in the rear and front. anything seem wrong or think i should take into account first? like i said, im a beginner wheeler so all the advice i could get would be great

 

More of my advice would be to start small and actually figure out the limits of your truck. Also figure out how serious you are going to get. The bigger you go, the less of an everywhere vehicle it will become.

If you have stock axles, do not put 38's on them. Stick to 33's until you have the money to put 1ton running gear under your truck (Dana-60 front & 14-bolt full floater rear). The stock 10-bolt axles don't like tires over 33" diameter if you really get serious.

Once you get to 38's, you'll likely want to go to 4.56 gears in those heavier axles. This will lessen the load on the transmission and transfer case.