That's about where we were on this. I drove the truck almost a year with the gaskets leaking. Fortunately, I was blowing compression into the cooling system and not actually passing coolant into the oil or cylinders. Yeah, not bright, but I knew I was going to be tearing it completely down so I really didn't care.
Anyway....
I apologize for the lack of movement on this. We spent the last couple weeks getting our manufacturing and shop spaces organized and had a number of things to get cleared up. This has caused us some regrettable delay on the project, although we are finally moving forward.
Anyway, as Jeremy indicated, the engine has been dropped off at the machine shop to get things underway. Decked, Fire-Ringed, Machined Pistons, Ported Heads, Twin Turbos, Dry Sump, and a couple other top-secret goodies that should make for an interesting setup. Still investigating injectors, HPO setups, intercooling options... All sorts of fun stuff. And that's just the engine work. There's a large amount of frame work (relocated engine), body work (roll cage, 5 point harness), suspension work (bags, notched frame, 4-link, narrowed axle), transmission selection (thinking Manual Trans, given the HP we anticipate), and other considerations that needs to be addressed as well.
Unfortunately, I already know that we are not going to be making our deadline. I am going in for surgery tomorrow for a torn rotator cuff and will be physically out of commission for at least several weeks.
We're hoping that once the engine is back together and in frame, we can start massaging the frame and body as needed. The rest should be pretty straightforward.
I appreciate everyone's interest and sincerely apologize for the delay. We are all excited to move forward with this project and reporting our progress.
Take care and have a great weekend!