Man, this one felt real familiar: me, Angus, and an old bullnose Ford that “should be simple”… except it’s got a tired 300 inline six that runs like a bag of cheese. It’s a Tennessee truck with no rust and a weird-but-cool four-speed overdrive, but it can barely hold 55, the clutch chatters, the door doesn’t work (because of course it doesn’t), and the 0–60 was a painful 14.98 seconds on a hill. So we decided to do what we do best—drag together a dirt-cheap V8 swap using nothing but used parts and whatever’s been rotting in the shed. The plan was a cheap 302, and I really wanted to use the shiny gold boat motor… until we found missing freeze plugs, milkshake oil, and cylinders that looked like the bottom of a lake. We borescoped it, confirmed the ugly, struck out at the junkyard for mounts, and pivoted to a different 302 that’s been sitting in my shed for like 8–10 years. That one’s a roller block with E7 heads—nothing wild, but the best of the worst—and we strip all the EFI stuff off to go carbureted. Biggest takeaway: cheap swaps are possible, but the “cheap” part usually means you’re paying in time, junkyard runs, and surprise problems.