Yup. I just discovered this forum less than a year ago, and I've learned a ton about the Chevy inline 6 here. I was in a somewhat similar situation when I bought my '78 250cid 3spd manual Camaro. The low mileage all original L6 was not running, and my original intention was a small block swap. But after tinkering with I replaced the rotten fuel lines, reconnected the clutch interlock plug, corrected the #3 & #4 spark plug wires, replaced the shredded negative battery cable and it fired right off. So the small block swap was put on hold while I put money into replacing missing trim and polishing it up. As I put a list together of everything I would need for the small block build, I discovered I had only the alternator and lower engine mounts that I could reuse. Everything else needed to be swapped out from the pulleys, power steering pump, starter and upgrading to a larger radiator which all started adding up towards the $3k range and I would still need to swap out the 3spd manual for something that could handle the added power. Then last year both my businesses took a nosedive, and the build went super economy level, and I decided upgrading the top end of the L6 would be half the cost of small block and started researching that. I didn't have a small block V8, transmission or other parts already; which if you already do than a small block swap is going to be cheaper. Doing a performance V8 build from scratch like I had to do was just too costly when I had a working L6 already. Plus keeping it original makes it unique at the drive nights, it really gets the attention.
