School me on Stock Eliminator?

I agree w/ Locomotion and 74Dusterkid. It's a very common misconception that you have to spend a lot of money to run Stock.
My friend and I built our '71 Road Runner from a nice '72 Satellite. Having all the parts to make it a '71, '72, Road Runner or Satellite gave us the options of using almost any engine Mopar made! Hemi, 440 6pk and 4bbl, 383 (71), 400(72), slant and 318 (Not good combos, at least not in the mid-90's when we built it.) Hi-compression 340(71) and low compression 340(72).
We built it as a '71 4406pk because it fit into D/SA, and there weren't many cars in Div. 1 that we had to worry about in D/SA. We were only 2 tenths below the 11.85 index, so we had to watch out for those faster cars in the eliminator and/or class run-offs. The odds are on your side. You just can't let a faster D/SA come up behind you before the ladder is set. In 2 years of running it (on a full schedule), we only came up against a faster D/SA car once, maybe twice, I don't recall exactly. One time, we even beat another D/SA car! I was driving, and I wasn't sure how to act!
Bottom line is: It's about research. See what combos are soft, and/or give you the most options.
We went racing on a limited budget, w/ an old ramp truck and a car that wasn't as "trick" as it could have been. We were competitive on a divisional and national level. Oh, and we had a couple runner-up's and we went some rounds here and there. My partner was Number 5 in the country in 1985 w/ another car that wasn't "ultra trick". That was my good fortune to race w/ an experienced successful racer.
From what I understand now, it's harder to get into some races w/o being pretty quick. The field is selected by how far under you run, and if you're slow, don't bother to go! (When we ran, as a whole there weren't as many cars running so quick, so we were able to qualify in the bottom of the field.)