Yeah, in the 6 years I've owned this Duster, it's been a highway cruiser, spending much of it's time with 2.45 gears and stock manifolds along with stock motor and tranny. Just last year I "upgraded :D" to 2.94's and headers, dropping to 13.3's
You bet we are loosing weight!!! But, we are trying to buy and build a flat nose truck on 5000 dollars and go fast. You have 6k just into the motor alone!! BIG BIG difference.
Yes I bought my duster 6 years ago and 5 1/2 years ago I paid in the neighborhood of 6,000 I can't say it was less or more and I'm saying that's everything including the 8 quart oil pan to the dual quad tunnel ram...
The point was to have something powerful and nice for years to come instead of fiddling with old junk..
For once in my life I just wanted a nice quality motor that I could build and play with and try different cams and try different heads and have great performance no matter how hard I tried to screw it up LOL...