Yeah, with little to no experience and a limited budget, it's be much easier and less expensive in the long term to just buy a crate longblock. Toss on an intake, carb, and front drive and you're good to go. Your transmission will be fine. check to see if it's a TH350 (turbo 350) or a TH200 metric transmission. It will say metric on the pan if it is. Also a TH350 has a little vacuum modulator on the passenger side near where the driveshaft slides in. It's the thing circles in red. There will be a little piece of hose and a metal line going up and over the side of the trans to the back of the engine. This controls the shift points based on engine load/vacuum. A TH200 metric will not have this, as shift points are controlled by a TV (throttle valve) cable. The TH350 will have a cable to, but all it does is pull up on a tang connected to a valve to kick the transmission down into 2nd gear (or first if around 30mph) instead of downshifting manually.
