I had pretty good luck building up my 2.8 a few years ago. I put an edelbrock cam, intake, and headers along with a holley 390 carb, and a set of 3.4L camaro heads. The engine runs great, at higher RPM's. I am not sure exactly how much power it put out, but I know I could stay right with a stock 4.0 auto with my 32's and 4.56 gears. If you plan on running just on the street or doing a lot of mud, I would look at building the 2.8-3.4, but if you do rocks, it will be hard to get the low end tourqe needed without going to a huge crawl ratio.