Okay, I see your point on the heads. If everything you have on the shelf needs some work then it is a "pick your poison" sort of a thing. Buying a head from Summit and using it to check fitment seems like a good idea. You can return it after a few days of fit checking if it doesn't work out. I was assuming that you had some good heads sitting on the shelf and I knew that you already had the shortblock pretty much together.

Seriously...holy crap. Is yours on 112? What's the lift....

The cam just showed up for sale and I grabbed it based on the lobe type + use, and the duration seemed sort of in the ballpark
Compared to other Influential builds/people. It was super cheap and seemed worth a try. It's actually an old Crane circle track lobe design.

Does it sound cool? It has to sound cool! Lol

Yeah, none of the heads I have are ready to rock, some could be ok with little effort
But some others are in rough shape.

I figure I'd have over 2 grand into repaired bare heads with CNC porting.
It's another 600 for Victors with valves (2600).
Almost the same for new MP heads, within like 50-100.
It's almost a wash.

Cheapest possible: I can cherry pick, and use the nicest heads I've got, and probably be mostly good to go
For around 1200. This is not bad, but without porting, will obviously lose out on a bunch of horsepower.
If I port them I'm at 2200 which is again really close to victor territory(2600).
I think the non ported option might be good for milder engine.

114 on the lobe separation ... EFI helps here. It really is a street car so used restraint on the lift: I = .637 E = .631 on E ... actually, I think it's just a bit more on the E because my RBRE/T&D setup has a but more ratio on the exhaust rocker arm than stock. That was Ray's suggestion. Dyno guy called when they had it running. I asked him if it sounded nasty and he said it sounded "snotty". That sounded gross until I looked up snotty and found definition #2, then I smiled and thought HELL YA! But you can be the judge: https://youtu.be/95gZTspdzsg

I'm working on the killer 50PSI fuel system. I want to build that once and have it be good for ~1300 HP on E85 in case I ever go boosted. Then I can really start breaking some parts ... might even have to buy a parachute. But the new job is killing me so I'm dreaming of the day I get it installed. Second kid graduates from college tomorrow ... 2 down, 3 years left to pay for on the last one. Then I'll have good cash flow for toys.

Joe, thanks so much for the info.

I hadn't looked at my cam card in months and didn't remember the specs correctly.
It's actually 276-280.

I won't have efi and so on, but I might do some other stuff.

I agree with the lift cutoff for the way I use vehicles. It's arbitrary but 650 lift and 650 open pressure is about all I'll do.
Preferably less.

Mopar Rich and I worked on an EFI tune today for a Barton 528. This is a pump gas street engine in a B body with an overdrive auto trans. Barton put a 283/293 flat tappet cam in the engine for some reason. Needless to say, it wouldn't idle at all with a standard tune. Rich was able to figure out a tune that allowed the engine to idle but it would die as soon as it went into gear. The tune session ended early when the starter bit the dust. So based on that experience I'd say be careful with big cams in pump gas engines, even if they are big engines. You might spend more time tuning the car than driving it!

If I understand my younger friends who do calibration, a big cam's lopey idle is usually interpreted as a misfire which does not compute.

To summarize everything they have told me... you want as near to a stock cam as possible in everything....at least, stock idle characteristics...to make your calibration easy.
If you want more power, put a turbo on it.

That is the mindset.....

Big cams, carburetors, and superchargers are for old people

LOL....good one.

The identity crisis that comes with those is always fun.

Say-
"Hey, nice Neon!"

And they go:
"IT'S NOT A NEON!!! IT'S A SRT-4, YOU IDIOT! It's a highly developed factory high performance vehicle!"

Then.....the first time they beat somebody....they go:
"Ha ha, you just got beat by a NEON, the biggest loser turd car EVER! ".

I also notice when they try to sell them, they are always special high performance vehicles.....

I had a chance to buy a few of them, and I just can't

What's worse is the way they sound...like an old Farmall 140 missing the muffler.

At .050....... in an EFI street car?

Sounds like it really could use a cam swap.