short block assembly

that's about what a competent shop will charge to rebuild a shortblock. Depending on shipping it might not be a bad deal. If you search the classifieds though you can usually pick up low mileage stockers or explorer short blocks for a lot less than that.
 
Yeah... The only downfall is I would be losing my forged pistons from my original block. These blocks have alloy cast pistons... I wonder what the quality of parts they use are like in these reman blocks like this. My goal was to build an engine first and then drop it in to speed things up a bit. My local and best machine shop is backed up almost 2 months if I wanted my block rebuilt....
 
Cast pistons are ok for weekend cruises and daily drivers, but if you are going to be spending any time at the track opt for forged. I went with hyper pistons. I am not looking at boost or spray and let the nay sayers boo and hiss at them. For a mild app they are perfect.