I've had several motors rebuilt -- and have also bought "crate" motors (if you consider (Smeding Performance a crate motor - which I do). It - like most things - comes down to QUALITY - and QUALITY doesn't come cheap. In order to get the costs down - production has to rise - or corners have to be cut. And like most things -- it all depends. Depends on how you plan to use it. Frankly - you don't need much of a motor to cruise around to car shows... you need a completely different build if you want to hammer it on the drag strip.
A really DECENT motor is the HO350/350 from GM.... you can get one complete carb to pan - including distributor and spark plugs even (the distributor needs to be recurved!!) for very little money. Smeding Performance has some variations of horsey power and use -- also pretty affordable and complete.
Some crate engine builders actually offer a warranty - nice peace of mind....
Or a simple rebuild or yours... like RickPaw pointed out - just do some comparison shopping.
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