I am sure this has been asked before. If you were to buy a complete used Gen 3 for a building block- foundation. Which year / size should I buy. Found a couple 04 5.7s local. Vin D. in the 1800$ range with ecm. It is for my 68 satellite. My plan is forced induction down the road. At that time I will go steel crank better rods etc.

Those would be good blocks,acc. drives for a turbo build. I would'nt pay extra for those heads,coils, intakes or ecm's though. If you can score the short blocks with the acc. and timing covers then hell yes.

5.7 shortblock would be ideal. Score a set of Eagle heads. Truck timing cover will mount alternator up high. Charger/300 cover will put alternator and a/c down low. If you don't use headers, get a set of 6.1 manifolds. Next best thing to shorty headers, breathe much better than 5.7 logs. LXforums has got lots of used parts.

Thanks guys. You got me thinking. I was going to buy complete but I now realize I would end up not using most of it. Plus I did not consider it having the wrong timing cover. I will look for a shortblock or bare block.