This afternoon a friend and I stopped by this shop in town where theres a '67 Vette pro mod and a '62 Vette with bout 1200hp inside.
We ended up talking to the guy-Thurston Thurton. Turns out he's big into cars-from Corvettes to Harleys-and has set some records back in the day with his '62 Vette. Anyways this guy knows a ****load about cars and after talking to him for like 2 hrs I now see that my only option is to build my own engine rather than go with a zz4 crate engine. What was I thinking? lol
I doubt I'll start til the end of April but now Im starting from scratch-not sure if I wanna go with a 383 or a 400 block and build from there. With the way I drive and how I baby my cars a 383 would be more power than I'd ever need. ANyways now Im trying to get everything together as far as what parts I wanna go with. I'd like at least 400rwhp with forged pistons&rods-doubt I'll need a forged crank. I'd still like to to the LT1 intake conversion though. I figure I'll spend about 5-6K on everything including long tubes, x pipe, cutouts, new clutch/flywheel, aluminum radiator, fuel injectors and a few other parts. Does this sound do-able for my price range? Any suggestions? How exactly do I know what parts/brands are good? Ive seen the scat kits but have no idea how to tell if they're any good

 

You seem to be on the right track, but for 5-6K, your gonna need to do alot work yourself. What will really kill your price goal will be heads, cam, intake, and install. The lt1 intake is probably a good choice, it is much cheaper than the miniram but is pretty comprable in performance. Cams aren't cheap, but the heads are gonna be expensive. Expect to spend atleast 1500 on a good set of heads. You'll also need everything tuned at the end, a good dyno tune can run between $350-$500. I'd say your looking at $8K-10K for what you want.