I've been agonizing over my transmission choice but now my incessant Craigslist searching has paid off. It yielded an 80's NP833 truck 4 speed O/D cheap. So long as the seller follows through I'll get it on Wednesday.
The plan is to mate this to a 5.3L for my '50 chevy. I want a manual trans but don't really want to deal with 1) high price 2) hydraulic clutch or 3) 1:1 final drive. This trans should solve all of these problems while being different.
The gearing is close to 700R4 at: 3.09:1, 1.67:1, 1:1, 0.73:1
Now just to figure out how to properly mate it to the 5.3L...