I have talked to Chris a couple of times, and he seems all right. I know of one person who used him and, his only complaint was that he took a lot longer then first stated to finish his engine. I tried to find any mention of bad work on the Dakota RT forum, but their search function did not find anything. I did find some positive post from about 8 or so years ago when they were a site vendor. If you have some links, or can point me in the right direction, I would love to see it.
Understood, I have been down this road before, and as mentioned, it is a slippery slope. it starts with it is only a little more for this and that, then the little extras add up too quickly. The one saving grace for me is that I am into my current engine for next to nothing. So even if I were to do something like buy a create engine, it will not hurt me money wise to not use it. I would love to have aluminum heads, but a set of ported cast EQ heads will get me where I want to go. I will have to get the engine down to the machine shop, see what I have, and plan from there.