New old '66 Barracuda

After a few weeks in the garage I finally got to installing the new intake and Edelbrock carb. Man, I spent a stupid amount of time fiddlefucking around with the throttle and kickdown linkage thinking there must be some black art/phases of the moon/sacrificing virgins aspect to getting it all together - I went out and bought all the different Edelbrock Chrysler linkage parts and tried to homebrew some concoction together, which at first was way messed up due to mixing up what I thought to be the throttle with the K/D... but finally settled on using the original K/D arm with socket end and one the the Ehrenberg throttle brackets from fleabay. 9BTW, initially I was not too impressed with the item shown in the pics for the buy it now price - seemed a lot of $$ for some flimsy metal pieces. When it arrived I was thrilled to find some stout pieces, so on they went.) After throwing aside all the BS parts I ended up drilling out on e of the mount holes on the throttle arm and used the stock ball fitting - for the K/D linkage - that also has the pin on the end to attach the throttle cable.
In the picture it looks like there is some interference with the cable and arm, but I looked at it a few times and seems okay. Once the 360 goes it should be other issues...
I also tried one of the engine gunk treatments - I mentioned in a previous post the top end was caked with crud, in a real bad way. I wasn't sure if the top end was getting oil!! After running it and doing an oil / filter change the runability improved, though the top end still looked nearly dry. How much lube can I expect to see in the heads when I pull the valve covers? I did halve the filter - looked nasty. Like something that came out of a coffee maker. Next I plan on pulling the pan and cleaning the pick up...