Unfortunately it was by replacing it with a 390 LOL
I will dive in to the 445 in the next few weeks, but wanted to let everyone know how the 390 did. It was a bench build, leftover parts I had, a roach std/std 360 I bought locally, Brent shared a leftover cam he had, and I went real low budget.
Now: 390 cid, cast 4V piston, .004 below, for 9.45:1. square decked, line honed, 427 cast crank at .010/.010, CJ big bolt rods resized and mag'd, C8AE-H heads, unported, new guides, cheap Elgin stock valves with back cut and decent multi-angle valve job, Alex's springs, Viton seals, HMV-272 cam, on 109 ICL, headers, unmodified Streemaster and a 750 3310 with a 4 hole 1 inch spacer.
Of course it was a heavily ported solid lifter, 10:1 445, custom cam, Ersons, ported RPM, 1000 Holley, etc. etc etc etc
Is it slower? OMFG it is WAYYYY slower LOL NP435, 3.50s, 2nd gear used to light them up, now chirps a little and pulls hard to 5000, 3rd used to break loose and pull hard to stupid speeds, now it just sort of goes faster....4th is sorta snoozy now where before it would scare you in the 4x4 and 4 inch lift very quickly
That being said, it is a very nice combo, and I had a blast just cruising around today, all you hear is a little header noise at acceleration, all the growl behind you, and no more of the noise. Now I can get to dialing in the rest of the truck to where it used to be
For those following over the years
, the 445 had been apart more than you'd expect and unlike any job I have done before, I ended up starting to just swap parts. Anyone who gets paid to do this work knows how much of an insult it is to say you are blindly swapping parts, but I got there with the blessed 445 LOL
The only thing I haven't checked or replaced is that I never zyglo'd the Probe pistons, but from day one it has always made this noise and did so with different block, valvetrain and all kinds of different components. My hunch is I will find a cracked piston at a pin boss, but I hadn't seen anything using just my eyeball in the past. I won't assemble this 445 again until I definitively find the noise though!!!
This little 390 is sure a sweetheart, going to be hard to get me to pull it back out, but another 200 hp will eventually be welcome again, once I figure out what next with the 445