shaving 452's

That said, you can still make a low compression 440 move pretty good with the proper cam selection, intake, carb, ex combo.
I had a 77 440 in a 70 Coronet. I put a magnum reproduction cam in, pocket ported the heads, the old Edelbrock ch4b intake and headers with 3.91s and a 750.
It ran real strong, pulled to 5800 and would light the tires at a 15-20 mph roll.
The old cam on a 115 lsa really surprised me. Wider lsa has a broad curve and still retains vacuum and good idle for
low compression motors. The key is not over camming.