Quote: How was the horepower downgraded? Was just done on paperwork or did they change parts in the motors? If so what was changed and can those parts be bought to build a clone?
The 525HP, FI 392 really did make 525HP. It had a stock 6.1 intake.
The "540HP" carbureted 392 really made 610-620. However, it was marketed at 540.... Only difference between it, and the FI version was the intake and carb.
The carb engine with the big intake was showed off at the big trade shows, but the average guy looking in the mp catalog like me, never saw it. Since almost nobody knew what it was, almost nobody bought it.
Later, that same intake had injector bosses added, and became the drag pak manifold. To clone it, a person would need to take a drag pak manifold and plug the injector holes like STEFF did on his.
Quote: How cheap can a guy pick these up in a junk yard typically? Or a better question is what is the current market value? Do we just look for a 5.7 out of 04-08 truck?
Around here, if you wait around a bit you can find a core motor on craigslist for $500 to $750. Same with ebay. Yep, for 5.7s you want an '08 or earlier (down to 2003). For 6.1s, any year will do. With either one, stroke it to around 400ci (or larger), and go ahead with the 12:1 compression (or more) like you were thinking. It'll work great.
On ignition, once the wiring harness is included, the MSD setup is about $600.
Alot of people, have put engineering effort into a timing cover/distributor setup. It's not cheap to do, because either a new timing cover has to be tooled up, or you take a stock timing cover and hack it/weld it.
My question is: if (hypothetically!!!) a distributor setup for Gen 3 was readily available....BUT it ended up costing a couple hundred more than the MSD setup...would anyone buy it?
