SHO Shop's problem is not their product (mostly), just the price. And their customer service.The small problems we had with the block itself were quickly fixed. But I think it can be done for less that $1500 (plus shipping), even with a 0 mile block from Ford. Especially if you buy the block from Bill Jenkins. And if you go full 3L you won't have to worry about blocking off the coolant/oil passages in the block.
David Z posted a little while back that 2001+ 3L Duratecs got a higher capacity oil pump, so that might be a consideration in what to buy. I can confirm something is different because I was going to install a new oil pump, but one came on the block already and it didn't match the one that I bought for a 2.5/earlier 3.0.
Here is David Z\'s FAQ which served me well, but it is geared towards SVT heads on a 3L block. Brad has a FAQ somewhere that I don't have bookmarked.
Whatever you do, make sure you put some tuning goodies and/or dyto time in the budget. I got near 10/10 on the dyno IIRC from just tuning the A/F ratio compared to using the stock electronics with my setup. I bet there is more in there now that I have my spark gremlin killed, fuel injectors installed, and opened up the air intake.

Just too poor to dyno.
