More on "Good Deals" and parts "Laying Around"....

Had a few people defending the writers of the Mopar Action article. They said-"What-your saying they shouldn't have used perfectly good parts they already had?"  I'm not saying that-I'm saying they shouldn't have wrote an article about how to build a high performance engine cheaply-and then use rare,expensive, hard to find parts that the average guy would have a hard time finding at any price,much less for free. If you say you built an engine for $2,500-"Joe Average" should be able to call Summitt or Jeg's or Autozone and buy the same stuff for roughly the same price-not $2,500 not counting $4,000 worth of stuff you had "Laying Around". That's the point I was making. Yes-I've stumbled onto some spectacular finds over the years. A friend of my dad's once gave me a complete Pontiac Tri-Power setup-manifold, carbs,linkage, air cleaners, everything for a GTO I was restoring. That set up would easily bring over $1,000 at a swap meet and I got it for free. I was managing a Pep Boys store in the mid-'80s when a woman with a 1971 Corvette had our service department install one of the $699 rebuilt long block 350 Chevys that they sold back then. After triple-checking the numbers on her "core"-I bought a tired, but rebuildable LT-1 for the $160 core charge and turned handsprings all the way home. But I didn't throw rings and bearings and an oil pump in it, stuff it in my Pontiac Ventura and write an article for Hot Rod magazine how I built a 12 second car for $600!! ( I paid $200 for the Ventura that had a blown 307 Chevy in it; my dad and I re-did the heads on the LT-1 on our own valve grinder and I had about $240 in parts in addition to the $160 I paid for the Long block. I had a TH 350, an Edelbrock Torker intake and a 750 AFB "Laying Around" ). See what I'm saying-If Hot Rod had published that article-evryone reading it would have said-"What an asshole." "You bought a 350 Chevy with 4-bolt mains,a steel crank,"Pink" rods,forged pistons,a solid-lifter cam, and "2.02" heads for $160??" "Well bully for you-how are the rest of us supposed to duplicate this "Budget Build?"  I had another Ventura that my cousin who owned a junkyard GAVE me. I stuffed the 400 and TH350 out of my wrecked '77 Trans-Am into that and had a nice daily driver / Hot Rod for nothing. But I didn't ask Popular Hot Rodding to write an article about it!!  A buddy of mine just inherited a pristine 1971 429 SCJ Ford Torino. It needs some cleaning up because it sat in his uncle's garage for about the last 10 years-but it's all there. He could probably sell it for $40k easy-but he's going to keep it and drive it on nice days. Good for him-but Musclecar Review doesn't need to write an article about how he got this $40,000 car for free-and after minor restoration-"This guy has $3,000 in a 429SCJ Torino!!" "Isn't that cool??"  NO-everyone reading it would want to throw up and be pissed that they spent $6.99 on the magazine!! That's my outrage over these "Budget Builds" who's budget?  Mastermind