Drake, it's all about what you start with. If you can find a 383 even with high mileage that's been taken care of with regular maintainance, you can get by with a minimal of machine work. I've rerung standard engines and put simple bolt ons like intake carb cam and headers and for the money those were some of the best runnin engines I ever built. because they were a little loose going together. A loose engine will make power. If you can find one on the ragged edge of bein in spec....or even outta spec just a touch, that's what you're lookin for. If you look in the books at the clearances, you'll see HIPO stuff had greater clearances than standard production engines. Course, you don't want the pistons swappin holes or nuthin, but a little piston slap never hurt anything. I said a little. You don't wanna be bustin skirts off. I like the original factory parts. They used good stuff back then. The old Chrysler cast pistons were very high quality in comparison to what's out there now. Basically, you want an engine with no or minimal sludge buildup on the tops of the heads and in the intake valley. Usually, everything else is pristine when you find one like that.
