"Good Deals" or "Swap Meet Finds" should be something the average Joe can find...Not "MoonRocks!!"

I hate to deride the buff magazines all the time, but just when I think their reasonable they pull the same crap again. This month either Car Craft or Hot Rod ( sorry, I forget which one-but it's one of them ) is featuring a 488 inch "FE" stroker engine buildup. I read the article figuring that Eagle or Moldex or someone may have come out with a new crank kit to stroke a 390. Nope. The engine builder just "happened to have" a for-real side-oiler 427!!  And they were using that block!!  Really??  Now how many people are going to have access to an original 427 Ford??!!!  This drives me up the wall, yet the buff mags do it incessantly. Read any article-"12 seconds for $1,200" or "Budget Small-Block Chevy buildup" etc, etc. I don't mind if they say they bought an Edelbrock manifold or a set of used headers at a swap meet for $50. We've all gotten deals like that. What makes my head want to explode is in the middle of the article-"Hey what about that set of ported and polished Brodix Aluminum Heads we almost forgot we had?" "Joe's brother not only gave us the 3.73:1 geared,disc braked, posi rear end out of his wrecked Trans-Am, he helped us put in the Camaro and bought the beer!" Ugh. One of the biggest offenders was "Super Chevy" with "10 seconds for $10,000." They decided to build a 10 second car for 10 grand, including the purchase price of the car. A noble pursuit-and worth reading about. I was fine with the 7 grand for a 500 hp 383 stroker engine,and two-stage nitrous system. What irked me was the "engineless" '79 Camaro they bought to put it in for $2,700-that had an 8-point roll cage,an ATI fuel cell, a 4.56:1 geared 9 inch Ford rearend,a TCI built Powerglide with a 3,800 rpm converter and a trans-brake,90 / 10 front shocks, Lakewood traction bars and Weld Wheels with 7.10x15 Moroso drag front tires and 275 / 60R15 BFG Drag Radials in the rear. A Currie 9 inch Ford rear with GM mounting points is $3,300 by itself!! Check Summitt Racing or Jeg's on the prices of the other stuff-Gee, I'd love to buy a car with $8,000 worth of premium equipment for $2,700!!! Another major offender was "Mopar Action". They were building a "Budget" 440. Again-I didn't mind when they said they bought a 440 out of a '75 Imperial in a junkyard for $450, and then had it hot-tanked and bored ,030 over. Standard rebuild procedure. Then they decided to use a forged crank and a set of "Six-Pack" rods they had "laying around". Check Summitt Racing-a Forged Steel 440 crank from Eagle costs $1,200. A set of Forged rods from Eagle is $599. After they got it running and made 480 some hp with an Edelbrock Performer RPM / 850 Holley combo-"Just for giggles" they decided to try the "Six-Pack" setup they had "laying around". Check Summitt or Mopar Performance-Edelbrock still sells the manifold, Holley sells the carbs,and MP sells the throttle linkage and air cleaner. If you buy it all-it adds up to $2,200. Since the tri-power setup came within like 10 hp of the 4bbl setup, but looked and sounded more "badass" they decided to keep it. How nice that they had $4,000 worth of premium parts "laying around"!!!  Don't bother telling me about "Moon Rock" finds you got for nothing-when I managed a Pep Boys store in the '80's I bought a numbers-matching LT-1 350 Chevy long block for $160. Someone had bought one of out $699 rebuild 350 Chevy specials and turned that in as the "core"! After triple-checking the numbers on the block and heads-I bought it for the $160 "core charge" and turned handsprings all the way home.  A friend of my dad's once gave us a complete Pontiac Tri-Power setup for a 2+2 we were restoring. That setup would easily bring $1,000 at a swap meet. We've all stumbled across stuff like that. But "Good Deals" in a national magazine should be stuff that anybody could find in a local speed shop or junkyard-not a side-oiler 427 Ford!!!  Just had to vent that. Mastermind