I started messing with this and then got swamped at work, so I'm going to update and maybe it will give me some motivation to get it driving again.
What James said above kind of stuck in my head (thanks James!) and made me slightly irritated with myself for acting like a little bitch. I intentionally bought a 2wd truck when I went looking for a regular cab, specifically because of the reasons I've been whining about now. It has to be 4wd to be fast, 2wd sucks, blah, blah, blah. I was determined to make a 2wd fast without resorting to a 4 link and I still am. Plus I really want to widen some PYOs and 20" Denali wheels to go in the back.
So I started doing some Caltrac and rear suspension setup research. I found an awesome thread on YB and realized that I was thinking about the setup all wrong. Based on that I made some Caltrac and shock setting changes, which fixed my wheelhop and I can even brake boost to about 2200 RPM now on street tires just from those changes. I am going to do some more work to get it really dialed in, but it is a start.
Checking my suspension travel. On Pirate 4x4 they'd probably call this checking cycles. I'm calling it practicing wheelies.
Then I pulled the rearend out, disassemble and greased all the rear suspension pivot points, put a factory shackle back in, added pinion angle shims, in preparation of redoing the factory shocks mounts.
Cut the factory shock mounts off and cleaned up the axle tubes. My OCD/anal retentiveness/perfectionist really comes out when I start fabricating.
Haven't picked up a welder in a few months. Always nice to see that I've still got it in me.
Reworked the factory hard brake lines to go around my new mounts. I'm doing stainless braided lines all the way around too.
Put the rearend back in the truck last night. Started measuring and decided I'm going to pull the bed to do the upper shock bar and then cut my spare tire crossmember out too. Maybe I'll get that done this weekend.