well if you do aircraft stuff you should have no problem doing an FE engine, much more simple, and much less requirements on tolerances as aircraft stuff, as i know since i fly small planes, you cant pull over in the middle of the air .... this stuff should be pretty easy for you, there are some great books out there for building FE motors, and many options you can go with... denny's suggestions are pretty good, if you want to keep on the cheap end, just replace the rods, bearings, pistons/rings, polish the crank hone or bore the cylinders depending, give her a valve job or upgrade to new lighter valves, cam, springs, chain and gears, intake, carb.... the cheap route can be pretty effective too... throw a different stall converter and different gears in the rear and you could spice that baby up quite a bit...... i had a stock 289 64 galaxie convertable only addon to the car was 3.73 gears in the rear and she was a rocket