a good friend of mine has a 4.3 built out with 6.0 pistons, the 2.02 valves from the old HO 350's and a edlebrock intake and headers, all hooked up to a 4spd auto with shift kit, it is in a reg cab S-10 4X4 with 4:10 gears and posi rear, the truck runs very strong, I'm not sure who did the machine work, but it had to be bored out quite a bit, but the pistons, rods, valve train, timing chain are all out of the GM performance parts cat. I would love to see him put this truck on a dyno, he still gets over 20mpg hyw, and 15city, I know when I ran my ecco-boost reg cab 8' bed against him, he beat me to 50mph! but I past him after that.

another great straight 6 was called the Black diamond I think it was in the 50's International trucks.

I seem to recall the V-8's had names also, I think the 327 was the Dauntless? and the 350 the Commando? they were not Chevy engines but AMC?

Mechanic, I agree with the Uconnect, but it's just to bad you an't get it on a work truck, and it is so costly! on the Ford you can get mytouch on an XL if you want, to get ucon. on a Ram you need to get the higher level luxo barge, and you even need to get it with nav. with Ford F-150,250,350ect. you can get work solutions packages on any level, an it is still cosly, but not as much as on a Chrysler product. On the GM prod you can get On-Star stand. on most, and for a couple hun on there work trucks, it isn't as fancy as the others, but it gets the job done, I have it in our Silverado and use it all the time, the only cost is a few $'s every month, and I believe that is the same with the Ford and Chrysler systems.

why do they need a super crew? a nice reg cab FX-2 with the 5.0 V-8 would have a lot more in common (and thats not much either) than the barge they have right here! yea a sharp 6' bed reg cab with a smooth cover on the bed would be a lot sportier than a SC! the only thing is you can't get the Ecco-Boost engine with the 6' bed reg cab, but oh well the V-8 sounds a lot nicer anyway.

oh yea, those big block V-6 GMC engines were torque monsters, that also ran forever! my family had a trucking co. in the 60's-70's we had a fleet of those things, in GMC 7500, 9500 6wheel refer box trucks, ran well over 200K, b4 rebuild! and then ran more an more, still ran after we upgraded to diesels! they were governed to about 65mph with granny low 6spd HD truck trannys, but with a full load 28,000GVW-33,000GVW, they had plenty of power, never had to down-shift on big hills, but only got about 4-6mpg! MT not mush better! the 7500 had the 351's and the 9500 had the 401's, and one of the 9500 had a 478! 4bl carb and 7 spd! governed at 75 mph, and got maybe 2-3mpg! MT, but boy did that truck have power to spare! I could remember a load of canned goods (very heavy stuff) illeagal of naturaly, I was about 39,000GVW !!! and never had to down-shift anywhere!, when we got rid of that truck, my cousin bought it just for the engine, and put it in his 67 GMC 4X4 short bed P/U! man what a mudder, sand monster that was! those engines never even used much oil, and they held 8, 10, and 12 qts! the 478 even had 2 oil filters, and coolant filter also! they all had oil bath air filters, they were also very heavy engines, my cousin had a 306 V-6 in the truck he had originaly.

other than the coat hanger holding up the tailpipe, and the insulation on the outside of the body, the front grill and headlights seem to be lower, with a more pronounced slope to the hood, euro pedestrian rules or more aro dyn?

the biggest weakness these truck had, was they tasted very good to the tin worm!

I do remember this engine from my U.S.Army days, and it was a fairly durable engine, but it did leak and use a lot of oil, in the Army, there is no tolerance for any oil leaks, and the trucks (Gladiators) were in the motorpool shop most of the time, but when in good running condition, they were very good runners in there trucks, witch were rated for or as a 5/4 ton with a special pick-up bed on them, very heavy duty step side type. I also remember the engine that American Motors used to replace it, it was the 3.8-4.2 6cyl. engine, that was used troughout the AMC-Jeep line, as well as in the Internation Scout, they were bulit-proof, and ran a very long time if maintaned, I had one in a CJ5 that had over 100K when I traided it in for a 73 Scout II brand new, and when I got ride of it (rust issues) it had 201K on it! with NO problems with it! at all, just oil and filter changes and points and plugs, and coolant changes, it was with a 3spd Chrysler Torque Flyt trany, that also never failed me, only had to change the trany fluid 3 times...That was a good running 4X4! but ir literaly fell apart from rust!

maxx: what in the _ell are you talking about? you need to go back to hufingtons post with your garbage

Ford, Chevy, GMC, Dodge, hell even toyota! nissan, just as long as it's NOT obummer!

that truck should be the obummer re-election hdq. official truck! It's getting deep around here!

I see no reason to put any engine but the 3.7 in this gov. truck, the V-8 and ecco-boost are a waste of tax $$, thee is no need, why would they need tat much power? the 3.7 is fine, and if they need to capture some desporado, they have the radio!, I will conceed the fact that there might be a need for a truck in some areas of Our Great Country, and for 4X4 at that!, but realy? 320+hp? why?, and then they should consider the lightest truck poss. take the spare out, have the smallest gas tank, go the extra mile so to speak to get the most miles so to speak!!

tundra hdq: what problems are you talking about? rusting frames? bad camshafts? flimsy tailgates? rusting body panels? the only Rams I have owned have gone for 100K+ miles with few if no problems, just brakes exhs. tires bal jionts, all easy to fix and very resonably priced, my boss had to replace his starter on his tundra it cost him over $1,000!!!, and now he has a truck that won't pass inspection because of frame rot!! and when we loaded his Harley in it, the tailgate bent in half!, all my friends that run on the beach have had to replace there frames on there tundras and tacos, (at least toyota paid or the tacos), yes thee are probably more problems on Rams, but the last time I checked there were more than 20 times the amount of Rams still on the road over the yrs.! the same goes for all the American trucks!

you might be onto something there LS1

MJ that was a general answer to a general ?, there is also something called hydro-vac brakes that are a step between the both of them, but do you realy want to have a accident with you air-brakes, and not have an endorsment?, the courts and lawyers would eat you alive! if the truck has a compressor, used for any control in the braking, you need an endorsment! there are those hugh motorhomes with air brakes, and there drivers for some reason need no special license, I believe it is because they have no comercial application for a motorhome? there are a lot of gray areas, and I can't ever get a straight answer for that ? but I would not take the chance!

MaXx: you misspelled your name , it's spelled MaRx

one thing about having a truck with air brakes is you do need a CDL, with the air brake license endorsment to drive a truck with air brakes, no matter the GVWR, even if you regiter it under the 26,001 lbs limit, and that is possible. Is that worth the hassle to you? But all it realy means is you would have to take a writen test, and then a road test, with the truck and sponsored licensed driver.

stevadore : this is a post for truck drivers NOT english majors, and were oh were did I say it was a good thing? (bad taste)!, and as far as 2012 goes mechanic, I have one word for you Wisconsin! oh no 2 words Wisconsin and landslide

if anything GM would use the 4.5 DM in there 1/2t , and if they want to go for the mpg maybe the VM, but they did spend a ton of $$$ on the DM 4.5, and that would be a great engine, I would think that to make it more feasable they would also use it as a lower cost option on there HD trucks too! that way they could spread the cost over more production, what do they call that amoritization?

it's to bad realy, maybe they seen what obummer did to GM shareholders and the got a bad taste from it, oh well the style of there truck was going to kill it anyway, what they needed to do was put a ranger or colorado body on it instead

Willydmax: very nice link! I'm sure if Banks has anything to do with this engine, it will be a great power making screemer! and I can't wait to put my $$$ down on the 1st American truck that comes with it!

I'm lucky, my wife drive a 2011 Z-71 Silverado ext cab, all black, no chrome at all, nice truck! Hey Tom B. all you hve to do to aswage the granolas in Vermont, is to convert you diesel to run on left over veg-oil! that would at least make it look like you care, at least to them, we know you realy do anyway.

come on now we all know that the new GM 1/2 , 3/4, 1T trucks will be all new, the HD maybe not so much underneath, but will be as much new as can be! and then the SAE tow ratings will be built into the new trucks, and there is a good chance they will be better than the rest.

I own a 2011 F-150, and a Chevy 1500, and when I went to buy the F-150, I couldn't get the good mirrors on the XL! I would have had to spen at least 40K on a XLT or better to get the best mirrors! Oh by the way I am happy with the service and comfort of both trucks!