That's what keeps me driving mine. Every stop you get folks coming up and telling a story from back in the day . Always puts a smile on their face.
Now, we just moved to the Florida panhandle and I got to tell you, it's warm here!!! Sure has me thinking about another old Jeep CJ-7. But I'll give myself time to adjust to the heat before making any rash decisions.
As far as the op. I try to have a balance between horsepower and reliability. I just recently went back to a mechanical fuel pump on my 5.9, mainly to get rid of the noise for my autistic grandson, and also more reliability...but I had to use the cam snout extension so....