Carb recommendations???

How much can you do yourself ?
Is the biggest budget problem

Just make sure you keep it to weekend projects, if you do too much at once sometimes it never makes it back to the road my bronco is an example of that lol
like Charrlie_S said project creep.

Eg... you gather all the parts to make a rear end swap than one weekend with a few buds swap it out.
Gears help since your engine is half the size of a 440 it makes half the torque.

If you have know how and cash to do the Head mill for compression I'd pick up a couple of cheap ones from the wrecking yard and practice porting on one and rebuild the other with milling and porting (don't get carried away) and do your cam change at that time.

The head is the biggest obstacle to make any power with a /6 for one you got two less intake ports than an 8 and the ones you have poor flow numbers and even after porting you only got something the flows probably less than a 318 which might get you in 1 hp per cubic inch.