New engine issues

I’ve never tried the “crack the valve and see what happens”, but I’ll try it on something sometime.
But I have done numerous compression tests on motors with bent valves...... some of which were really quite bent...... and none of those showed “0” on the compression gauge.
And...... a bent valve is never really closed.
It’s that situation that made me wonder if you could get the tester to read anything with the valve not fully seated.

If the the “292” in this case is accurate enough to use for calculating the cranking pressure, then it should be behave accordingly in the motor....... which wouldn’t be 20” of vacuum in a 318 that cranks 120psi.

Like I stated earlier, the 292/292-12 cam and the MP 484 cam both have 68* overlap....... and I’m quite sure the MP 484 isn’t going to pull 20* in that 318.
More like 1/2 of that...... maybe.

Along those lines......
cam A, 284/296-110, 70* overlap
Cam B, 302/312-112, 83* overlap
Which has better idle quality, idle vacuum, and low end TQ?
(The answer is simple)

Anyway...... back to your regularly scheduled programming.