273, or 318?

LO23M8B said

After reading all this I was thinking why not just find a junkyard 5.9 and o.d. trans. all together. Couldn't be that much cash and you would have the bigger, torquier motor gets decent fuel economy and still run a 3.73 or 4.10, best of all worlds. So guys what would a junkyard 5.9 and trans cost? My guess $700.00? Cheap deal.

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pull your own locally is about 650 for a motor minus the accessories, which they'll nickle and dime you to death on and a transmission w/ a converter is 400-ish.

so you're at a smooth G just to get into the game.

from there, figure all the ticky-tacky bits n' bobs to do a swap plus all the nonsense for a standard r&r and you're rapidly approaching a few hundy more.

oh, and don't forget the motor and trans are completely unknown entities.