Build me a Small block

72, The last small block I built was a customers and a member here, albeit ususally too busy to hang around. The build was simple. 4" arm, 340 block (which is not a big difference at this level over a 360), on a budget, and startign with nothing but a core block and 587 heads. I charged him about $1200 in assembly, sonic testing, and head prting work. All the other work was paid to a machine shop I work closely with. They are not the cheapest around, but they have the best equipment and sharp guys working with it. In fact, it's a 1.5hr drive for me to get there and I pas a whole bunch of cheaper shops enroute. But this guy does the best work, period. The car this engine is in is an Ebody that weighed in at a portly 3800lbs with driver and runs a 3.23 8 3/4. I The engine is iron heads with "stage 2" porting, around 265cfm intake (ready to bolt on were $1500), cast crank, stock rods with good bolts, and Diamond dished pistons. Internally balanced to .1/gram, main studs, and basic good assembly. It pulls mid 12 at 109 and gets 17mpg on pump unleaded (89 or 90 as I recall). It's a hydraulic cam with roughly the same specs as Ryans. 508/528, 308/318 hydraulic with sintered iron. A 4" arm needs a big carb to make power and I use 870 Street Avengers for base builds. So the 3310 off the shelf (or even the 800cfm 4150 DP) aint enough. This package makes between 450-470hp depending on your math. Very basic. The total cost (and I'm sure there's more I overlooked) was $7K. That was a year ago and parts were bought two years ago. Do I think you can build a 4" arm for $5K, sure. Do I think Ryan can? Hell yes. Do I think yours will be the same as his in terms of parts and quality? Nope. Do I think it's reasonable to get 500hp from a budget build? Nope. Why don't you try and do it, track every dime, and run the car when it's done, and let us know how you did? What's funny is Ryan's livlihood is based on his getting your money. And he says "sure no problem" to $5K. What happens if it goes over? He make shis profit, and your engine sits until you can pay for it. If I tell you "sure, no problem" to your $5K my life is totally unaffected. Yet I say it's not doable. Why? I've done it, and I do it for fun. My house gets paid for by my job, which has nothing to do with cars. I've gotten paid to do it for others for (ugh..) 22 years now. I can tell you it cant be done AS YOU ARE ENVISIONING it. Not because you're stupid or your Dad's out of it, but because I think what you have listed is leaving a ton of stuff out that Ryan and others do know about, or perhaps you haven't discovered yet. It's like a road map from my house to Montreal that doesnt show any road smaller than the 4 lane interstates. Sure, you can see the big distances and the basic path, but you can't see what happens off the main road. And when you need to get to the first highway you're lost, and when you get off the last one you're lost. We're not trying to diss you, just trying to nicely point those small bits out. The small bits always either equal cash spent, or power left out. 2800lbs needs 350hp at the crank to run low 12s if it's set up to drag race . 400hp with street gearing and a street convertor. :D