Your old truck is what I want for myself for a "hunting truck".
The ride is great in those half tons with the coils up front. The steering is nice, no noticeable bump steer.
The 300 is a great engine, very tractorish.and with the manual trans there is no "slippage" or lost rotations in the drive line.
Lighter engine, more room to work under the hood, great torque with the 4" stroke.
None of the engines made big HP in the late 70's. But the 300 wasn't far behind the 351 in HP and the 351 is expensive to mod. These days its easy to mod a 300 if u like. Get a set of efi exhaust manifolds, change out the rocker arms for a little more lift on the stock cam, those 2 things alone help a bunch. Then of course you could go after carb, intake, cam, higher compression pistons etc.
Or just leave it stock and drive it for 300k.
Not everybody needs 500 HP, I know I don't, not in that truck.
