The BB Chevy will make awesome power, I will try to put this into terms you will understand. A chevy 350, if you are trying to build a good ole hotrod motor, you'll have to have a matched system. While it will be quick, these little cars were originally to be hotrod, hauling butt from redlight to redlight. To this Hotrod theme, if you put a small 4 bbl, alum intake, headers and all, you have a sweet running little car. If you feel like riding around in a awesome light hotrod, with a stock motor, no big cams and lumpy motor, you could do it with a SBC. Won't be super fast or flashy. just a stock motored hotrod.
Now, get that that same T-Bucket, put that 454 in it, just recurve the HEI, put on some good bright colored plug wires, drop on a inexpensive alum. intake, a good holley or Edelbrock carb, a custom aircleaner, but in place of the cam, put in a good offroad cam, maybe a HighEnergy bumpstick, you'll have something that looks the part, sounds the part, having a slight roughness to the idle, and it'll Shag Butt down the road like a rocketship without hitting 5500 rpms. The 350 will do the same thing, but not with as much ease.
If you like a really choppy idle while still having a manageable motor, get a Thumper cam. That awesome sound will be there.
A mild built bigblock will have the same rocketship like acceleration that ta all out 350 sbc would have, just won't have to press on the accelerator near as hard to get it....
The Torque from the BigBlock will make it all worthwhile.
Once you sit behind that BBC, its the same as a Blown SBC, after you sit behind one and feel the pull it has, nothing else will quite measure up....