OP claimed the junkyard 5.9 was barely adequate. With a stroker upgrade, some more compression and quench he should easily move from the barely adequate category into the acceptable zone. FWIW I see a lot of guys hauling bobcats around with half tons, but here our roads are long and flat.

A 97 12 valve made 440 TQ @ 1500 RPM. I don't see why that is un reasonable to expect that at a little higher RPM, not like you could even use that TQ at 1500 because the converter stalls more like 2000.

BTW I have 2 V10s complete sitting in my shop ready for swaps, he did not like the mpg of the one he had. No reason I could not coax more MPG out of this engine when un-sadled from emmisions controls allowing more compression, better cam and I can run tighter quench a better flowing exhaust, less friction and one day when he can afford another cummins this motor will make a good swap (with a bigger cam)into a 68-69 dart.

BTW we are swapping a Dana 70 and bigger leafs and over loads. We are looking for a 3/4 4x4 front, the matching one for the rear has the driveshaft on the oposite side meaning more work than I want to fool with.

you cant touch the towing ability or mileage of a diesel, no way no how. if he doesent like the mpg of a v10 wait til he sees the mpg from a smallblock trying to haul a bobcat. look at a 4bt (4cyl cummins) from a breadtruck. you can also pick up school busses that have cummins and Allison auto's with maintenance history for 4k here anyway, pull what you need and scrap the rest to recoup some of your $

v-10 likes gas ,but that stroker is really gonna like gas

I like what you are trying to do. You will need extreme cooling measures to the engine and torque converter. Sounds like the haters are not seeing the potential of torque with RPM.

I've owned a V10 pulled like crazy right off the bump. That you can get with a sb stroker. 8mpg towing big enclosed when you kept it under 60. Towed with 360 blew it up screaming it up a hill. My 440 puuled great with the right combo. Got rid of it only because the truck was a rust bucket.

I love my diesel but writing on boost and maintenance is a shortcoming. Overall you can't beat the million mile engine. But, I think a stroker small block can do the job. Many small blocks did it for years. I would highly recommend Doug thorley tri-Y headers. Huge difference on the 440.

So it is running, pulls like a freight train when the carb is co-operating, we are trying to use his 650 Thunder-series AVS but it was very lean and put the biggest jets and smallest rods we could find in it and it is still lean but all the bogging is gone. We tried a friends 650 double pumper and it really woke up so now he wants to get a new carb, looking at this one for the tunability and a little more air than the 650 for a few more RPM.

http://www.summitracing.com/parts/qft-ss-750-an/overview/

What do you guys think?

Ended up a hair under 10 to 1. 218@.050 109 LSA, R/T heads cleaned up a little, cheapy headers dual 2.5 exhaust. .031 quench, 416 cubes. It seems to pull a lot harder with a 1 inch open spacer.