[biketopia]

If I were in your shoes, I'd figure out what engine and trans I'm getting and settle on that. Then what swap mounts you are getting, then, if the engine isn't leaking anything, and you don't need to go into the trans, put them in the truck. Down and dirty strip your own harness or snag a good one off ebay or your local pick a part. Talk to one of the local guys you've been talking to already about swaps and ask who locally could turn off VATS, rear O2's, etc, have that done and then get to enjoy the truck again. You can always go back and change wiring, you can always pull the radiator and pop the heads off and slide a cam in, you can pull the manifolds and swap to headers later. If you keep it a "driver" you're less likely to get overwhelmed with it and put it on the back burner. My truck came off the road officially 5 years ago, and I haven't done much of anything to it since. I'm getting ready to pull the trigger on a huge order of suspension goodies to get it back to a roller and hopefully that will motivate me to keep making progress.