I think some can't see the forest for the trees. To say "they figured all that out in the 70s" is a ludacris statement. You think nobody has learned anything in 40 years?

Modern stockers are over 1 second faster now that back then. Same parts such as heads intakes and carbs, yet the cars are way faster. The camshaft if the heart of any engine and what will make it run or be a turd. There is no current stocker record holder out there with a 70s grind camshaft in it. Will about bet the farm on that one.

The rod connects the piston to the crank, that's it. Doesn't matter in any other facet. People get WAY caught up in rod ratios and what's good and what's bad. Guys way smarter than me say it doesn't matter and I have found the same results.

People also do NOT understand the difference in intake centerline and lobe separation angle apparently. A 118 LSA cam installed at 116 does NOT always mean it is advanced. LSA is the intake centerline and exhaust centerline added and divided by two and is usually NOT the same as the intake centerline. Lots of big cams may have the intake ground on a 116 centerline and the exhaust ground on a 120 or wider centerline. That cam would have a 118 LSA but installed on 116 would make it straight up

As far as Don's deal, seems he told Scott before he ever tried it, that it wouldn't work. So he went into the experiment thinking it wouldn't work, so how much effort did he put into making the cam work. Did he do any carb changes, timing changes, maybe a converter? Just because you swap to this cam from another and the car slows early, doesn't mean the cam is wrong, just that it didn't like the current parts arrangement.

As AL has tried to point out, there is no magic PART........its the combination of ALL the parts and making them work right