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I've swapped a few V8's into a few different cars, and have taken it upon myself to become a subject matter expert since doing my LSx FD3S.
The SBC (small block Chevy, AKA Gen0/1) is cost effective, but certainly not ideal in any respect. They're almost all iron block and about half have iron heads as well, and unless you're boosting >10psi, iron block sucks. When you factor in partial-throttle response and fuel economy with the ease of GenIII/IV (LSx) wiring, running carbs on your street car becomes a little ridiculous as well. Obviously, I'm not a fan.
As far as kit companies go, Hinson's in some hot water right now and although their products are generally pretty good, they're backed up. I have nothing but warm fuzzies about Sikky's swap kit, and Daft has some good stuff as well (I think they're cheaper but not as complete). With the multitude of engine mount options, headers is really the thing you want to buy rather than fab yourself, and you can't go wrong with either of those.
That brings me to headers - block huggers to use stock cat and catback? Get serious. You're leaving 30hp+ on the table, after all the work to get a v8 in your car? Get some legit longtubes for a few hundred bucks and do true duals with an X-pipe (street) or H-pipe (race).
The real 'sweet spot' (budget-wise) in my opinion is to find a LM7 (GenIII 5.3L Aluminum block out of Silverado 1500's) engine with relatively low miles (50k or less is common) with harness, PCM (that's powertrain control module, GM-speak for ECU), and accessories for less than $1000 and slap a T5 or T56 on it. 300hp stock, high revving, FUN FUN FUN, and cheap.
If you've got a few grand more to spend, you get a 2001+ LS1 drop-out from a Camaro or Firebird. They've got the best OEM header/cat config for trying to pass smog, no EGR, and the LS6 intake manifold stock.
If you've got somewhere around $10k, a forged 402ci shortblock using a brand new GenIV block and 4" bore x 4" stroke (that's block + rotating and reciprocating assembly, no heads and no trans) runs about $4k, slap some 243 heads (C5 Z06 and all LS2's) on there for $500 or some L92 heads (LQ9 and LS3) for $1k or so with a cam/pushrods/springs/retainers and pick up an accessory kit and T56 for 500+rwhp all day.
I'll admit that I play in the higher-end V8 builds more often than the budget stuff, but I'll be helping a few Pro-Am guys reach their V8 goals on some tight budgets this year, and of course I do all the electronics.
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