Why so much inital timing???

mopowers said

That is exactly why the shop that built the heads opened up the heads to 65 CC's to give me under 10:1 and spec'd the cam he did. I'll dig up the cam card. If I recall, IVC was around 60 ABDC, which would put the DCR near 8:1, right. That's what we were shooting for. Cam has a 108 LSA and 104 ICL. I'll happily give up a couple HP numbers to run on crappy 91 CA pump gas in the middle of summer.

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Was it 104 or 108 ICL? You list 108 in your first post. I'm just curious.

Assuming your 60 is correct (and look at that, my guess was close!). Gives us:
Your dynamic compression ratio is 7.90:1 .
Your dynamic cranking pressure is 157.29 PSI.

So yeah. You COULD squeeze a little more out of it. RHS iron heads have closed chamber. Which is a big plus against detonation. And if you planned it with great quench. You could definitely run the max DCR. But once again, you'd need to stay on top of the tune. Watch timing closely. Be careful where you fill up. Etc etc. Which is fine if you're like some of us (me) and don't mind that sorta thing. But in a daily driver and average street car. It's a lot to worry about. And like I said. That shitty CA gas? One bad tank and that engine is cooked before you can turn it off. I think the setup you got is fine. And timing doesn't surprise me at all. Almost any 340 with a 230 @.050 or bigger cam is over 20 initial.