You have a very good way of putting things so they dont make you feel like you dont know what your doing. For the manual part, I ordered the manual from courtesy nissan that is on the cd for the 90Z is that good or should i get the actual book? The reason for starting with a new block is the car has 180k miles on it but still runs fine and has had perfect maintenance on it(it was my uncles). I also did not pay even close to full price for the shortblock. I have a friend who ordered it for his Z and totalled the car before he got the motor delivered :(. He sold it to me still in the shipping crate for 1500 so I jumped all over that. I know that little steps is the best way to go and this is going to be little steps over the next 2 years the way i figure it, I have about 20hours a week I can put into it after work. So hopefully at the end I will have something that looks and acts as good as yours does :)