@rspears i agree on most things you say, but then again i will be towing a caravan to most meetings during season and as its a double axle one i found the use of oilcoolers quite helpfull to keep temperatures within normal ranges certainly on hot summer days. then about the brakes i personally find that the brakes on vans(even the first expresses as i used to have one to small for the weight, certainly on smaller roads, i'm not a guy who speeds alot but i can floor it sometimes and found that even with good brakes they tend to start fading, and when i brake i want them to work thats also where the stiffer supsensionsetup comes in place my van is a hightop so a higher center of gravity and my gf hates the leaning out in corners :-p.
On the flowmaster part, i had a flowmaster on my express and just loved the civilized sound when your just cruizing along. and as second, in a few years the van will be running on both gasoline and lpg. i don't know if your familiar with Liquified Petroleum Gas. when it expands in the cilinders it tends to give more condensation in the exhaustfumes, so in mufflers filled with glasspack after a short time it makes the glasswool hard eliminating the silencing. Thats also a reason your allowed to remove a kat if you have one. and the pollution on lpg is about 60% less then regular fuel even with all the emissionshit on the engine removed. and is also 3 to 4 times cheaper then gas. only drawback is about 10%to 15% less horsepower but its a great fuel to run on long trips
@ firebird, what the electric fan and pump is concerned i'll keep your words in mind and will wait out how the engine reacts for now. the electric fpump idea is from the time i had a 67 mustang and had to switch to a electric pump because the OEM could not deliver enough fuel to the carb, drawback was that if i didnt start right away it would flood the carb lol(dunno if it fits or can be made to fit but would a mech BB fuelpump be an idea?)
@techinspector1 so you would suggest to get a good set of aluheads over vortec ones? any good names or brands i need to keep an eye out for?
at this time(dont have the money for it right away but still) there are a set of vortec "906" for sale for about 400€ they have been inspected and revised where needed, they say they come from a mercruiser boat engine. not that i'm buying them but just to give you an idea on pricing