There's a lot of good points there. You can buy a complete new 350 straight from GM for about $1300; probably less than you'd put into the 305. If you're just looking to learn how to do a rebuild and want a smaller cube engine, I always recommend to people to look at either a 283, 307, or 327. The longer stroke, small bore combo on the 305 just wasn't their best design when it came to smaller cube small blocks.