I was considering replacing my tired out original drivetrain with something from a more modern Firebird - like a mid-late 90's. Probably be easiest to find a donor car, and just take all the parts I'd need. Engine, trans, rear, etc.

Not looking to do this job myself - but assuming I found a donor car that everything was in good order, what would a typical shop charge for the operation?

And also, what obvious things would interfere with making this an "easy" swap? (ie, make the job more expensive, etc)

Just looking to be able to drive my bird on a daily basis - have reliability, performance, and better fuel economy.

LS swaps are popular, the Pro-tour forum has lots of info on modern running gears into vintage cars since that's their thing.

http://www.pro-touring.com/forum/index.php

GM Sports in Milpitas CA specializes in this. They can sell you a used donor and give you all the instructions on how to install. One of the car magazines did an article on this once, but I can't remember which.

The Team Camaro website has a whole forum section devoted to putting late model GM engines into 1st Gen Camaros.