or you could just go with a stock stroke 440.lol i have a 0.030 over 440 that i can race and drive on 93 pump gas.car weighs 3520 with me in it. my times are in my sig. after owning both small block and big block powered A body's.All i can say is a big block abody is no harder to work on than a small block. I used to have a 71 duster with a 440 that i used to drive all over the place. But to the op it all comes down to what you want to build.I say if you all ready have the stuff for a small block i would build that. There are some mean small block/ strokers out there around. I built a big block because i all ready had the stuff laying around.