Rebuilding G54B, pointers?

I recently bought a 88' B2600 and I love this truck, its a fine little work horse. However, from what ive been reading, I think that it may have a bad head gasket because of a recent compression test I did that revealed my 2 and 3 cylinders are 7:1 whereas 1 and 4 are just under 9:1.

To back up a little, I did this compression test because it really dogs going up hills (even after a carb rebuild) and after some straining going up a hill it will start to lose power, shudder and make a lifter ticking or exhaust leak noise

I am giving all of this info because my current thought is that I should find a Starrion/Conquest and rebuild a G54B that has been turbo'ed already (probably slightly lower comp on these blocks and valve clearance differences??) and to make this a project for the next few months after I gather all the parts.

im hoping that someone may be able to point me in the right direction here or give me a sanity check. I live in western Washington and there are few scrap yards here (they were regulated out of existence almost.. yeesh!)

Please drop me some feedback if you have any thoughts, all comments are welcome!

-Artimus

Oh!

I forgot to add that ive been offered a buick 215 v8 (from a range rover) and I was wondering if anyone here would be able to give me a level of difficulty on getting that wedged into this truck if I decide to ditch the starion idea.

There have been a few people here with 350/305's in the truck and the 215 should be slightly shorter, but I still dont know what people have had to do to fit the V8's like moving back the firewall and swapping the trans (I would have to find an old th350 or something and figure out the transfer case as my truck is a 4x4 and I want to keep it a work-horse)

Well with the 215 swap there artimus yes you would have to swap out the transmission as with a 215 there is more power i think than the 2.6L. You would probably also have to swap out the rear end but i dono about that. But i would just stick with rebuilding the 2.6L thats what ima do soon as i sell my ATV aka quad lol.

Mine did the same thing. I installed a weber and it still did it... after dealing with it for awhile i decided to pull the head. turned out it had 7 cracks... not cheap. i went for a new head with the jet valves casted out