Engine build up options

From the tone of your responses, I'm only questioning one item..Are you sure you want to run low 12s or 11s? Witht he figure of 10mpg, and the more street than track, you may wantt ostay in the 12s. I'm all for stroking any mototr, but in your case, a nice hydraulic cam, factory headed 360 will run waaaay into the 12s on pump gas and be calm in a normal driving situation. What you want to do, is seperate what will make the power you need, and fit your budget from what you read makes mad horsepower. A 408 (360+.030 with 4" crank) will run 11s all day, but you need to feed it, and iron heads are not what I'd use, unless it was mandatory. You'll spend a bit more making iron heads work well on a 406, than a set of aluminums that can far out produce them. For a nice balance, I'd go something like this...360 core, performance rebuild, KB pistons, stock crank and stock rods w/ARP bolts, for the heads, 2.02s, 1.60s, bowls cleaned up, gasket matched, chambers cc'd and polished. Leave the porting/polishing for another buildup. You dont need it. Edelbrock Air Gap intake, a nice hydraulic cam, headers (1 5/8 tubes woudl be fine), an Edelbrock Tunder AVS or Holley street Avenger, a nice 904 trans, convertor in the 2400 range, and a set of 3.91s should get it deep in the 12s on 91 octane, and close to 10-11mpg if you drive sane..lol.