Well, I should probably throw out an update. Going with the 5.9L plus the higher-lift 5.2L camshaft. Picked up the crankshaft from the machine shop today, it cleaned up beautifully. Heads are with my head guy for valve & seat machining and new guides/seals/etc. Block is at the machine shop to be bored out to a 6.0L. All the rebuild bits (seals, pumps, bearings, timing set, HE pistons, moly rings, etc) ship to me on Monday, along with the Transgo HD2 shift kit that's going into the transmission I picked up on Saturday. Also bought a set of 5 more BFG Mud Terrain KM tires from a guy taking them off his 2010 Rubicon, they've got 96% tread, less than a year old and I got them for 25% of the price of new rubber - couldn't pass that deal up. It's been an expensive week. It also means that I own enough parts to build two complete drivetrains, minus a set of 5.2 pistons. :lol:
Heading to the boneyard tomorrow to pick up a 5.9 harmonic balancer, a drivers-side motor mount, and lots of Dodge Neon fuel injectors. Yeah, Neon injectors. The set of Bosch injectors I rebuilt would probably work OK in the 5.9, but at 19# they'd be working at a much higher duty cycle than I'm comfortable with. The Neon injectors are 23# units (stock 5.9 are 22.5#) and are apparently an even better design than the other ones I had. Go figure.
She won't likely be ready for another 4 weeks or so due to time constraints, but at least things are meandering in a vaguely forward fashion.