I'm pretty happy with the 60/40 split bench I scrounged out of an '03 Ford Ranger 2-door extended cab.
(This is in a first-gen 4X4, for the record)
They're a breeze to install because they're built underneath along lines of Toyota's bucket seats of yore, the rails and mounts are all even geometry (some 60/40s will have longer struts on the outside, and shorter ones on the inside) and the front mounts are the same 90* brackets that bolt onto the mounting lip on the floorboards.
The only down sides are their obscurity: Ferd doesn't sell them whole, you have to know what pieces to buy, and acquire them individually, or find good ones from a scrapper; and the height, they stand a good 3" higher than Toyota buckets (pickup or Cruiser, I had a set of each at the time), so if you're tall, you'll bump you head on the roof.
If this is the way that sounds interesting, look for an actual scrapper, the kind that tears the cars down themselves, not Pick-N-Pull, because they don't abuse their stuff as bad as the jokers at a u-pull.
I snagged mine from Cordova Truck Dismantlers in Rancho Cordova, CA. They don't ship seats, but persistence may reveal something useful.
The motor thing is a HUGE can of worms to open. There are as many opinions out there as there are possibilities.
Personally, a built 2F is a fun motor, or a 2H if it can be found. If you're dead-set on a domestic engine, Chevies are common, and cheap, but if I were making the decision, I've gotten a chance to play with Ford's 4.2 Liter Essex V6 (1999+) alot and I'd have to say: that's one of the best V-pattern motors I've ever seen. I'd wager it's power against a 297 Chevy, but it would out torque it in a heartbeat, and still sip less fuel in the process.
The one in my possession has only been down once, and that's because a tech working on it caused some FOD that had to be dealt with.
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