Depends on what you want to do with the block. Are you going to just throw it in the car as-is, or are you planning to go the route of blueprinting the engine and....?
At least do a compression test, take the heads off look at the cylinder walls, check the condition of the oil, smell the atf et cetera.
Any engine that I get I consider it as nothing more than a core.
Honestly, you will probably be money ahead just buying a crate engine because you will find all kinds of things that you will want to do to, "make it better."
