If it's not cracked, or excessively bored, and the lifter bores aren't too far rusted, it's a viable core. Check local prices for mag, shotblast, bore, deck, line hone.

But, once in the car, there's not much to ID it as an L79 that can't be done with a later block. Dipstick location and road draft tube are about it. A TBI or Vortec shortblock is set up for cheaper factory roller, saving cost over a retrofit link bar type, and EFI bores are typically much less washed and worn than a 30 year older carbed one.

It's not that the shorter stroke engines CAN rev higher, but that they MUST. Head flow limited, the muscle car era SBC engines with essentially the same heads, cam, intake, compression ratio, all make about the same peak power. Breathing problems. Chart is 302/327/350, same peak power. 327 doesn't give up a lot to the 350, but it's everywhere below peak. Compare your trans ratios to the torque curves, for upshift recovery torque. Better heads would extend the larger engine's power to higher revs and make more peak. One can extrapolate what a 383 or 406 curve would look like.

My pops told of taking his then-new 65 GTO out and racing a "283" Chevy 2 with a dual-quad 'vette intake. Turns out it was bored to 4" and had a trick 4" billet crank, and 11 more inches than his tri-power Poncho. Cubes is king.

Or, turbo the 230/250 ;) https://www.12bolt.com/me-and-my-turbo.html