Sanity check re engine swap options/planning

Engine swaps are just like hitting a golf ball 300 yards. Easy if you know how to do it, impossible if you don't.

If you don't know what you're getting into then it will be a big pain and the odds are that you'll eventually give up and sell the car at a huge loss. If you know what you are doing and have the tools, parts and space to do the swap then it is an easy and fun process. For the beginner though, an engine swap can be a nightmare of endless frustration. You'll need to round up a bunch of little parts that are hard to find, especially if you don't know what they are. Lots of stuff has to change and some of the different parts are hard to find. Staying with a factory swap is the best course of action for a beginner since then you can buy stuff like radiators, hoses, belts, throttle brackets, shift linkage, etc. off the shelf.

Good advice, but I did my first big block swap without enough tools and no internet to help me out and nobody around that I knew who had done the swap, either. I did what research that I could, but in the end I just jumped in and did it. Hit a few snags, but now it's old hat...