Sticker Shocked

Alright... my budget has officially gone out the window. I budgeted about $800 for machine shop labor and parts; let's just say I was shocked when I got the final bill of $900 for parts (this included $500 for the internal balance, custom push rods, adjustable push rod guides, timing chain set, plugs, etc.) and around $1300 for labor.
If you do the math.... I paid $400 for the used block and put $1300 in labor to have it bored/honed, align honed, decked, magnaflux tested, hot dipped, and mocked assembled for crank/rod clearances (it required minor mods to the bottom of the cylinder walls for the longer stroke); for a total investment of about $1700.  I could have bought a brand new 351 "Sportsman" block for around $1200 already with the .030 over bore and did the cylinder wall mod myself.

Lesson learned: if you want to revitalize a vintage block, fine, take it to the machine shop, otherwise, there's no way you will ever convince me it's better to start with a fix-er-up "cheap" block.

Another lesson learned: if you do decide to use a machine shop, keep close tabs on everything they're doing and get estimates for everything before you have the work done.

Yet another lesson learned: if you're buying a stroker kit, it's probably best to get it straight from the manufacturer.  I found what I thought was a good deal on my 393 c.i.d. Coast High stroker kit, saving about $200 on the CH price.  I later realized that if I had bought it from Coast High directly they would have internally balanced it for free (uh, that's about a $400-500 savings!!!)