That's a good point that I hadn't thought a whole lot about. On the highway I feel like the rear would be fine because the rear shaft is longer than the front, but especially off road it may cause an issue. Multiple double cardon rear shaft, maybe? Getting costly there though.

I'm tempted to get the rear made up with conversion U joints so that I can easily swap to the Dana 44 front/Crystler 8.25 rear that I have laying around just to see if it is even feasible with the stock axles. Then at least I would be able to conclusively tell folks if it'll work with stock axles, and I could really test where those limitations are.

Update on the donor truck; motor wouldn't stay running cause the fuel pump is shot. Need to grab another and see what we can figure out before I pull everything.

 

Finally some more progress! This summer hasn't gone exactly how I had hoped, but we're slowly getting there.

I finally got the motor pulled today. And thank goodness I can finally get that parts truck out of the yard. Gonna be immediately replaced with another, unfortunately. A Durango that I need the motor out of for my daily driver '88 Dodge D150. Should be able to get that one gone pretty quickly though. My folks are out of town so I have their tractor for the week.

Anyway, I'm getting off topic. Still not exactly sure the direction I'm going with this build. I feel like I'll probably just throw a mild cam in and a gen3 intake and be done with it, but we'll see. That 4l60 trans I have won't support much more than that.

 

It's pricier due to needing a trans controller but what about the 6L90? Can handle more power and you gain 2 more gears, imo that's at least a good strong look at feasibility for your plans.

 

6l90 nice as it would be is out of the budget. In all actuality I may let the 4l60 sit till I swap the wife's disco, that's all she will need, and find a good nv4500 setup for mine. Manual swap is really the long term goal anyway, so that's the debate right now. The up side to the 4l60 is just that I already have it.