That's really helpful, thanks guys. Dwayne, after I found your post on the 542 I started to think 700 wouldn't be that trivial to make with these heads on a 540, and with the additional info on the combo you've definitely reinforced that- it's not going to perform better. My heads aren't appreciably better and the induction won't be any better either.

It should be nice, torquey, hopefully near 700 hp, and work well in a heavy car but is only going to run a little better on motor than how my car currently runs on spray, just need to prepare myself now so I'm not dissapointed in a year after spending the money and putting it in the car. Most of the benefit will be a rotating assembly and block that won't be on borrowed time if it gets a 250 shot sprayed through it all the time.

Is there any benefit to overcamming it some, and bumping the static compression up to something like 12:1, and trying to keep the dynamic CR at a value that's pump gas friendly? Or not worth the 1-2% power improvement? Imagine the tuning window gets a little smaller at that point.

That definitely seems counterintuitive, Andy. Searching Speedtalk and there are similar posts too, would've never guessed that single pattern is better. I've read that both nitrous use and restrictive exhausts favor wide LSA's but wasn't sure on patterns.

Going to order crank and rods soon, assume 6 bolt is ok, 8 bolt isn't needed at this power level.