I have my short blocks put together at the machine shop and I do the rest .

What Goob said on Machinist retiring I have 2 pretty fresh engines . My go to Machinist was as particular as I am He retired this year at 71 years old heck of a nice guy built stocker engines as well as pulling round track almost every thing but fuel motors. Im soon to be 70 so I guess these will last me until I tap out.

There are engine builders and engine assemblers. I'm in the last category. Up until 15 years ago I picked the parts, made the measurements, checked all the measurements when the parts came back from the machinist and out it together. It worked fine. Never had problems I just wore them out. The last time I seemed to have trouble keeping my assembly area clean enough to suit me. I got away with it for the last one but decided it wasn't worth the effort for what I was going through. So, my machinist became may engine builder. I've run this 93-octane combination for the last 15 years. His build or mine they all ran the same. He did a similar one for a friend that had more compression and tweaked the cam a bit and it worked well. My plan is to move up from 10.5 to 12.5 and use his cam selection. My guy is pretty busy lately with other shops shutting down and I may have to find a way to keep my shop clean.

Agree difference in building and bolting together.

I have always had to have machine work done sinc e never had equipment to do my self. I do final hone to suit since have hone and torque plate. I have enough valve stuff to touch up heads at track if have to but not new seat a guides work.
Now my machinist will(well use to) do as I requested, often with argument. I love tripping him out with stories of stuff we did at track to get to next round. Stuff like marine tech filling side of block we melted that night and hand filing. Hey won that race by the way and the second one after that.
Try telling a machinist that you straightened a titanium valve with a hammer and got it to under .006 run out and ran it. Forget explaining fiber glassing side of block so can get round money for staging the car(Clayton Harris at Rockingham). Some of the **** you see at drag race will screw with those precision guys.

One thing about building it yourself. When something needs fixed you can find away to make it work even temporarily if needed or you know immediately what to look for.

i pay Sunset Racing Engines for new and whatever else comes along best $ i ever spent racing. Not waiting on locals months or years ....

I'm building mine, I didn't plan to. I bought a LS motor from a guy that buys slightly used motors directly from GM. Mostly test mules or in my case from a concept car. I planned to just run it as is this year and swap in a cam next year. The oil pan had a piece of piston skirt in it, so I pulled the pistons. I couldn't find the bad piston but while I have them out might as well upgrade, right? That's when I found the spun center cam bearing. Fortunately, it didn't hurt the block, so I dropped it at the machine shop last fall, asking him to surface the block and heads, polish the crank, hone the cylinders, hot tank it, install cam bearings, and then I would assemble it. It's still there, circle track motors have priority.

Never had that kind of delay from machine shop but that was my guy for 40 years .He has now retired.

In defense of machine shops there are lot fewer of them and I am sure work load has gone way up for them and probably issue finding labor.

Guess one upside to running my old Top alcohol stuff. Need bigger bore ? You can order sleeves and piston to fit no machine shop needed. Downside if need work done you are probably shipping block to Indiana. That is about only place you find someone experienced with working on this and with its age that still hard to find.

Stopped by the shop today to verify fit of gen3 flexplate on gen4 motor, is good.
Heads, rods, and crank are finished, brought them home. Block still needs resurfaced, honed, and cam bearings installed.
In the interim I bought a 5.3 for $350 to install so I can get the rest of the plumbing, headers, etc., figured out. Making progress!