[Christ]

Small block swaps are so common in S10s that the kits are openly available to make them bolt in, including basically plug-in wiring harnesses and adapter kits.

The NV-series transmission, you can use the 4 cylinder, V6, or V8 NV trans, and just swap the front half of the case (bell side and front half of the gearbox, 2 piece cases), which allows you to use whatever gears you want, in the event that you can even find different ratios. I think the only changes in the NV-equipped trucks was the rear gear ratio. Finding the 2.73 rear (or even lower, if you could.) would really be nicely loading the SBC, and with intelligent driving, you could easily see 30's with it.

From what I remember of my days of old, the SBC's could handle lower RPMS all day, as long as you didn't break the 1k barrier. They really didn't like to be under that, at least not in stock trim. Add in some tight long tube headers and a long-runner air-gap style intake, and you get more mid-range and low-end torque, at the expense of a choked out top end (of the rev range), which allows you to basically run 50 MPH idling in high gear without so much as a hiccup.

I've always been more about using longer gears to extract torque than using short gears to get the RPM's up there. I follow Larry Widmer's idea that RPM = Ruins People's Motors.