I wouldn't use it to set mounting locations, only to get an idea of clearances and for visualization. I am sure it is just a mesh with a bunch of faces and doesn't have anything to set as mounting holes. I could be wrong, but that is what you get from a 3D scan unless you bring it in and make holes and surfaces and such.
I found this one as well, much cheaper but I'm even less sure of any dimensional accuracies compared to the $40 one. At least it has the right shifter housing as an option.
FORD COYOTE 5.0 - GEARBOX TREMEC T56
It's more for a small scale model or something, but cheap enough that it would be cool to add it to my model just to see how it all sits together.
My goal is to market this as a DIY solution. I don't plan to stock them, nor am I going to weld them together. If someone wanted to buy one, I would ship it direct from an online laser cutting place and they weld it up themselves. There are some tubes they will have to cut as well, but I don't have that locked down as yet. Either way, it should be half the price of the other one that is perpetually out of stock.
This one does require the outer plate to be bent to fit, but it's 16 gauge and the radius are fairly generous so time will tell. The inner/bottom plate will be bent by the online place I am going to source mine from.
Not going to say mine is better, and not sure if it would work for someone that isn't doing a G3 swap with Holley mounts either. I guess if someone wanted to do some measuring, maybe I could revise my design to fit that situation. But for now this is kind of a narrow focus part.
I though about buying a 3D scanner...until I look at costs. Creality has a nice one I have heard, for $4K. They have one for $800 also, but not willing to spend that much right now. And like you said, there is a bunch of work afterwards to make it something you can use for anything beyond visualization. And I doubt my laptop would do the work.