Few questions on having and engine built.

I'm just a hobbyist, but I've learned some things along the way through both good and bad experience.

Number 1, you get what you pay for. With some obvious exceptions, this is largely true. Find a shop that has a good reputation. There are some great Mopar specific shops recommended on this site. Moparts also has some of the best information available on the web.

You really need to define EXACTLY what you intend to use the car to do. If you want to sacrifice drivability for performance, you will get a car that requires sacrifice for daily driving. If you want great street manners, you will have to sacrifice some power. In general terms, these are the laws of the sport. However, using modern engine management technology i.e. EFI, turbo charging with EFI etc, properly matching the engine to the driveline and chassis etc, you can raise the curve so high that you appear to get the best of both worlds. That being said, you can also skew that balancing act one way or the other to the extent of your tolerance.

Think well about what you really want the car to behave like, and build the engine for that.

These days, I get my short blocks and heads built by professionals and assemble the long blocks myself. Shipping is relatively cheap. I had a fully built and dyno'd long block shipped 3/4 of the way across the country in a container for $300. Don't let the shipping fees keep you from using a well-known and reliable Mopar specific engine builder.