The prospect of keeping it simple has its appeal to me. The challenge at the rear is that by changing out the transmission to a 700R4/4L60E/4L80E/or whatever-you-like, you are doing away with the torque tube that is part of the rear suspension, so to speak.
Patgizz's suggestion of making a fascimile of the original arms and incorporating them in a design with the Ford 8.8, has a great deal of merit and deserves further judgement and design thought. To be fair to the LQ4/4L80E combination, there is plenty of that hardware around these days to allay any of my fears that parts availability will become problematic on the road. That being said, you sure can't beat the simplicity of a 5.7 install:):):)
