Is this going to be mainly a street car driver ? Or do you plan to mainly just race it ? You could easily build something close to what I built and get 550 to 600 hp with no problem. My eng is a pump gas eng as I knew I was going to drive it on the street 99% of the time so I built it with good quench as it runs good with no ping at all on 92 pump. And my eng is no race eng and I really have never got after it yet to really get as much performance as I can. But I built it to run and drive good on the street for long runs. I do have a few more cubes at 493 as since I used a 440 block and needed a crank it made sense to add the cubes since I was building a mild stroker to make enough torque to push my 3700 lbs into the 10's in full street mode where I can drive it anywhere including to the track. I used the basic Indy EZ heads as I like that you dont need offset rockers and the exh port is stock location. To me they are about the same as the Eddy RPM heads but I feel with alot of porting they should have a little more potential then the RPM heads. One day down the road I may step it up some and have my EZ heads really ported alot. The EZ is a little more money then the RPM but I got them on a good deal from Dwayne Porter as they were only about $200 more then the RPM heads on sale at that time. I also do not use a roller cam as since I knew I was going to drive it alot I did not want to worry about the valvetrain by uing all the spring pressure you need to use with a good solid roller so I went with a solid flat tappet. And my eng has 10.6 comp with quench using the D-dish pistons.
Use a good aluminum head that will flow good and I would have a custom cam speced to your eng as I had Dwayne spec my cam for my combo. The crossram may cost you from 30 to about 75 hp from what I have heard but you can still get it done with it.
So I use a pump gas friendly 10.6 comp and Dwayne did work my heads a little so they flowed about 329 @ .600 lift and my solid cam is 264 & 270 @ .050 with .585 and .592 lift but I use 1.6 rockers that puts lift about .630. The LSA is 110 and I have it on a 106 ICL. And the idle is actually smoother then I thought it would be as I love some rump rump in my idle. I use the Indy dual plane that works nice on the street with my 850 DP. But I am sure a good single plane with a dominator would make more power but the dual plane is so nice to drive on the street. I am guesing my pump gas 493 makes about 600 flywheel hp to push my 3700 lb 63 to 10.70's so far and as I said its not a blueprinted race eng as its a simple mild very drieable street combo. You should have no problem at 451 cubes making your 600 hp as long as you do a smart build and use the right parts for the combo. I know alot of guys still run the factory type crossram and make good power. Money was also another reason I am not running the crossram right now. Good luck with it , Ron
