A couple of decades ago, I used to have a '68 Chevy 3/4 ton truck with 70k miles. Rust-free, straight and solid. It had a crappy stock 307 V8. That was a bad engine for Chevrolet, it burnt a quart of oil in 500 miles!

I replaced it with a fresh '67 327 with 2.02 intake valves. Solid lifters, doublehump heads, Carter 4bbl, and dome pistons. Aluminum Edelbrock Torker II intake. I had to have the starter rebuilt with more windings for the high compression. It was licensed, and had open headers, it was hot shit on the farm. At the time.

It was geared too low to go fast, but it got there very, very quickly. It had the snap/crackle/pop/rumpity rump idle. The other farmers thought I was weird. Some of the young ones saluted me, for hearing it start a 1/4 mile away, on a cold winter morning.

This was a daily driver for 11 years, not just a weekend fun thing.