$ Building a Slant 6 for performance

someone brought a 9 year old thread back from the dead..... I'll say that in the end of this most recent election season, I'm not as happy with Trump as I was before this past New Years holiday.... but I am definitely not happy we got Biden, the next 4 years (or as much of them as he shall live, he's old) I won't get into reasons..... I'm tired of the last few go rounds, where the goal winds up being to try to figure out who will be "least of 2 evils"..... and hope "your guy" wins.

but back to the thread topic...... I have read thru most of it, and bits and pieces throughout, spell out why I am building a slant for my most recent D150....
It came with one
Ive been down the "yank the slant and drop in a V8" road. More than once.
If I put a V8 in there, (and I have 5 great candidates sitting in my garage right here already) I have to buy a trans that will bolt to a V8... I already have a 727 (yes I know the difference) in the truck behind the current (original) engine.
I'll have to buy a radiator
I'll have to find V8 mounts
The money I "am not" spending on "conversion to V8" parts, is money I can put into building a much stronger, much more powerful Slant/ not only compared to what is in there now, but with only 6 pistons and rings for a 6 vs for an 8, 1 head to machine, 1 head gasket to be worried about (not 2)
and this truck is the lightest GVW of any D series trucks they ever made....
even if I put "1 ton" suspension under it, I can legally only pull the same weight of trailer as what it was originally rated for or load it to what the original intended payload it was meant for.... even if I put the 440 into it that I have here....
most of the time I won't be carrying much in this truck anyway, and it's plenty for my utility trailer or my popup as is.....
It's different from what everyone else does ( usually people put a V8 into the engine bay, scrap the slant)
The slant has always been known as a dead solid, dependable engine that will trudge on for hundreds of thousands of miles, (yeah I know so would a 318 or 360)
once this truck is finished I won't want to sell..... I don't like the newer trucks, I can put less than 1/6 the money into this one and have a super nice truck, vs pizzing it away as payments....
I just gotta figure out just how I want to build up this particular Slant engine...
I like what "my 68 Barracuda" (member here) did to his slant in his truck... main difference between his and mine, is short bed (his) vs long bed(mine).
If I don't go that way, I still have home brew, draw thru, low buck turbo bugging me in the back of my head.... biggest difference between the 2, (internal to the engine) would be "the" ideal cam to use.....
I love the D/W series trucks, been looking for a decent, solid body example for a while now..... would I have rather it came with a V8? Maybe, but I got what I got.....