building a mild Daily driver 318

If you get the compression,heads,and cam sorted first, it will pull hard, off-the-line,even with a 2bbl and single exhaust.
Heads,compression,and cam. Get these sorted and matched, and you will have a platform to work with.These three are intimately related.
With no compression, and bolt-ons only, you will be band-aiding it with gears and converter, and wondering why the thing is so hard on gas. Then you will end up driving it on weekends only.
If it costs too much,today, delay the start up until the money is there.

It is no fun driving around in a car that has a really soft bottom-end, after throwing a bunch of money at it, and expecting tire smoke.
If you leave the compression in the basement, and over-cam it, all the bolt-ons in the world ( except super charging), won't get it off the line in a hurry.
IMHO most streeters should be thinking of pumping up the torque from idle to 3000, instead of dreaming of horsepower at 5500.To get to the horsepower at 5500, you still have to go through idle to 5499 first! If the torque is sacrificed down low, the getting there will be disappointingly slow.And guess what; 5500 with 2.94s and a 2.45 low makes 60mph. So long before you get to 5500 the performance was lost.
I would be dreaming of 400 ftlbs at 2400, and don't care how much horsepower I don't have.
I realize that's not gonna happen on this budget, but I said "dreaming"