They were definitely available. However at the price compared to the setup I currently have, it was apples to oranges. Much more cost involved in building a new gen iii hemi and swapping that in than what I have. Trust me I nerded out and did a full blown Excell spreadsheet of costs for gen iii vs LS. LS won hands down. Thus I started the LS swap on jt snd jt germane me a chance to engineer some thing to do something, that at the time I had only ever seen mentioned twice. Never actually saw any really info on making it work.
So could I have done the plug an play that every other mopar owner does and pay more for it, absolutely. Did I want to be like everyone else in the mopsr crowd and put a 318 or 360 in there? Absolutely not.
I could see how that is confusing for a lot of mopar owners. If you need anymore clarification to accelerate your understanding, feel free to ask. I may still have the spreadsheet around somewhere. Have a blessed week my friend.