I own both an intercooled Buick, and a turbo LS swapped 78 Malibu. Buick is very basic, unported heads, TE44, basic pump gas only setup and runs high 7s@85mph in the 1/8. I probably have $1500 in that long block. It's fun, and I do enjoy driving it. Enough power to surprise most modern muscle from a red light.
The LS car, has a $175 core 4.8 that got pulled for lifter peck. I pulled the heads, put new lifters in and stock replacement head gaskets, custom cam, and eBay head studs. I didn't touch the roatating assembly. It is fuel injected on E85 with an old diesel turbo. It's just some redneck hacked together junk that runs high 5s@120 in that 3700lb junker.
The moral is, both are REALLY good IMO. It just comes down to what you want to do, and how you want to do it.
