318 Rebuild suggestions?

I'm not saying AJ's case is entirely impossible, it just sounds to me at best a rare exception. I like to stick with the general concensus for these engines, which is blocks around 318 size can get mileage in the upper teens and 360 gets in the lower teens. These are real world numbers I believe because I've seen (my friend has the old 70s Chevy Cheyenne with a 350, that thing gets consistently 11mpg). My 21mpg figure was at a time before the power loss issue when I was running a K&N filter (got me an extra couple mpgs) and I had just scrapped my cat converter for issues it caused. That's also given my commute, level all the way to/from town, and I'm always soft with the pedal. As for my friend's suggestions, I'll see if I can challenge him on what really needs to be replaced and what all should be left up to the machine shop, but for the most part he's helped with all sorts of auto work so I trust his judgement. While he trusts this shop, he has had another shop screw up a 350 he was gonna put in his camaro. Something wasn't done right, crank seized and snapped in half first turnover

Remember this is a stock 318 from a 91 Dakota. All stock, simple TBI EFI so no carb