Tim and I had this conversation multiple times. We probably should've gone with a Gen 3 rather than a 427 inch LA engine on the last build. A Gen 3 with EFI and a 5 or 6 speed transmission might have made the car more competitive without blowing the budget, but the conclusion I came to after several years of work was that the smart money was buying a used Z51 Corvette for racing. Starting with a '68 Valiant was a cheap entry point, but the project wasn't cheap by the end because almost everything other than the sheet metal was replaced or modified. A used Z51 gets you around the track pretty quickly right off the lot.