I guess my point was, I would have figured in a fairly normal build, that cam installed at a pretty normal installed c/l would have only had about .150" or so exhaust p/v clearance.
If you back the cam up 14-18 deg from there you lose .80-.100" of that clearance..... And that's when valves start tagging pistons.
Everyone has their own process of working things out, but IMO, a leak down test should be close to the top of the list of the next steps taken.