I deleted the link in my favorites now that I have a diesel. But I did consider BOMBing my gasser before stepping up to a real truck.
There is a place in texas that sells stuff exclusively for Dodge Gas trucks. They have exhaust, chips, intakes, throttle bodys, etc. etc. Search around there are some seriously BOMBed gassers. I will see if I can find the name and update this post.
By little V8 to you mean the 5. 2L not the 5. 9L. checkout the power curves on these two. The 5. 9 has much better bottom end and torque curve. According to these folks you CAN get the 5. 2 to have the 5. 9 power curve with bolt on stuff.
Also check MOPAR Performance catalog. They have a complete line of stuff for the gassers. The shop that installed my gassers FlowMaster 70 series, was installing Mopar Headers, hi flow Cat, 3" exhaust, flowmaster and monster tip for a guy in the stall I went in. Sounded great when they fired it up and pulled it out.
In fact now that I think about it, go down to Dodge parts guy, look through his performance catalog. I recall they had good into in there about HP increases. Make a complete list. Then get prices. then shop around to get the same stuff, from the original vendor at lower price.