How much does the vortec swap usually cost?
Better off directing those questions directly to those shops linked here that do that kind of work. They can give you a ball-park range.
On a philosophical note, however (yes, here we go again...) if you want to get an appreciation for both the skill (craftsmanship) and judgment that goes into bidding on (pricing) and completing these types of swaps/mods on early model vehicles, then be sure to read "Shop Class as Soulcraft: An Inquiry into the Value of Work" by Matthew B. Crawford. He does a good job (yet somewhat scattered) attempting to articulate the dilemma faced with providing a service that requires both judgment and the skills required to act on that judgment...in contrast the other 'jobs' in the Information Economy that barter in content...copy and paste...
The crux of the dilemma is that the exemplary mechanic takes on the responsibility to fix the problem on the customer's vehicle. He sets his price based on his diagnosis of the problem (symptoms) and his estimate on how much it will cost to fix it...all based on his judgement (combination of implicit and explicit knowledge). If, in accepting that responsibility, he runs into an unforseen problem (the head of a bolt breaks off and he can't get to this or that, etc...) then he runs into the dilemma of not only how to fix that problem (because his reputation in his understanding of the social contract is based on correctly fixing that problem ) but also who will incur that cost...if he doesn't pass it onto the customer, then he eats it from his own profit margin...even though that new problem was not of his making, rather can be attributed to the uncertainty of repairing older vehicles.
In contrast, many 'mechanics' might not even fix problems. They might just replace parts and then charge the customer, whether it solves the original problem or not...not unlike the 'cutting and pasting' that goes on in the Information Economy... And any additional problems generated along the way will most definitely be passed on to the customer. As a result, you could say that they do not take responsibility, rather they use their position as one of authority.
It is my assessment that the reason that these types of mechanics are not held to account is because the majority of American consumers don't have enough knowledge about their own vehicles to keep the inflation of value of their work in check...
The reason why most folks on MUD have a healthy amount of respect for those folks mentioned in the past thread who do this type of work on Land Cruisers is because they are not only exemplary problem solvers (true mechanics) but also fair minded, straight talking business men and artists when comes to these resto/mod projects...
