I feel the same way you do about hiring so called "professionals." I try to do as much as I can myself because of the waste of time and money but mostly the frustration and the fact that you end up redoing it yourself anyway.
I'm in the process of redoing my inter-cooler, radiator, and condenser on my 1988. I took out the modified Chevy 4 core radiator and inter-cooler and went with the factory Dodge: radiator, inter-cooler and condenser. Please attach some pics to show us your core support when you get a chance. Also, my 360 went belly up almost 3 years ago and so I parked it and am in the process of switching to a NV4500 instead of trying to rebuild the 360.
Keep us posted.