So, I figured I'd update this a bit...
I'm still not finished, but I went in a different direction. I ended up grappling with the final height of the glass & decided that I needed the whole thing to sit higher. While debaing getting an LS engine stand to help this sit a few inches higher, I stumbled across
this picture and really liked the idea of an assembled engine on display. I grabbed my stock intake, a set of 241 heads donated from "Creeper", my old throttle body, and various other little things to slap on. I loved it because this also managed to clear some real estate on my parts shelves in the process
I opted out of the hot tank & blasting--mainly out of laziness. I ended up cleaning the block a little bit & then hitting it with High Heat Bright Beauty spray paint. I'm going to continue cleaning up the other parts like the intake & the heads, and likely spray the throttle body with the same spray paint as well. I'm looking to get my hands on a junk cam to slide in there & a sprocket to wrap my chain around.
In addition, I have a good friend who has the equipment & ability to cut me a 4 head plates out of aluminum. I may go that route instead of cleaning & polishing the front/back of the heads.
In the meantime, here are a few pictures of where we're at now. Gotta start working on mounting the pistons & rods next.