Your new Cruiser appears to be 9-76 or later. Look inside the driver door check next to the a-pillar. This means it will come with the more desirable 4speed, disc brake front end, 4.2L 2F motor and 4:10 gears. The 2F is a great motor for low-end torque. It can be built up with basic hot-rod tricks: shaved head, cam, header and rebuilt Aisin carb (don't use Weber or Holley, they suck). If you want to SBC, OK, but you will lose significant potential value of the vehicle, you will probably lose torque in the 600-1500 RPM range and you will lose weight over the front axle. Your axle is capable of running 79+ 'fields with minor clearancing. With improved birfs you can run 35's no sweat, just need a 4" lift. If you go SOA you can run 36s with stock springs, usually. IMHO, you should take the top off, get it running and take it off-road a little while it is totally stock. They are impressive bone-stock. Personally, I would not swap Chevy crap into a Cruiser (YMMV). No Turbo or SC kit is offered, and if you fab one I highly recommend swapping studs for the head bolts. Good motor swaps for these are 1ZFZEs from 93-97 LCs with an auto, or 13BT or 2HT diesels from Canada with H55Fs. I'd love to see a hot 7MGTE with JDM 96+ R151, that would be sweet! Then again, the venerable 2F is not a bad motor...
