Last ditch effort for used 318

120lbs psi all cylinders,
Golly, my stockish 1962 slant 6 has 130 psi cylinder pressures and that is with a mild cam. You engine does not appear to have much compression ratio at all; a good guess is that this has the pistons that are .080" in the hole and maybe even open chamber heads.

I was told the cam could be retarded due to chain (new) stretch? Off a tooth?
It does not even have to be off a whole tooth to be doggy; just 4 degrees retarded will show up. Unless you time the cam, you'll never know where it is


Putting #6 cylinder TDC compression stroke and Measuring #1 cylinder spring tension difference of intake/exhaust of .030 int.-.060 ex. was good.
Do you mean the LIFT was .030" int.-.060" ex. with #1 TDC at overlap? Seems to be pretty retarded cam timing. The exhaust will be a BIT more open, but .030" sounds way too much, indicating retarded timing. But a true cam timing exercise is the only way to know.

I would be doing a proper cam timing exercise and looking at the thickness of head gaskets used. Not much you can do about the stock pistons being so far in the hole at this point.