Need help, advice with my 318 build

Dartboy52 said

Interesting, I believe the reason that there is a 4 degree advance designed into the "centerline" of most cams is to increase DCR on most older engines. So would you agree that at least taking that out and installing them "straight up" on a fresh 10:1 may help things? But yes you are correct when retarding it affects performance by moving the power band up.

Opening up the non quench would help but you don't want to risk any thin areas. Head gasket will effect quench.

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My thought is that the cam retarding also effects other things, like the overlap; more retarding will likely result in more intake charge dilution. So the retard-the-cam approach will have other effects.

Also realize that I am heavily into getting a wide torque band so tend to favor cam advance in general. I can see some specific racing uses and hi-rev only setups where a more retarded cam makes sense. But that is not where the OP needs to go to reach his #1 and #2 goals.

Removing material from the non-quench areas is typically very shallow so si not that risky IMHO; it does not take much depth of grinding over that whole area to remove 2 or 3 cc's of wall material. Heck, I removed 7 or 8 cc's from some SB Ford heads once in that area, no problemo. And the OP can also look at the valve head shape to add combustion chamber volume; using valves with a V-shaped dish on the valve head easily can add 2-3 cc's of chamber volume.