Rowdy and Mean 318 build

A while ago I posted a thread about my 360 having broken in my '70 Duster (busted piston). Well now I'm getting ready to send the 318 block originally out of the car to the machine shop for prepping. The bottom end will be pretty straightforward; zero-decked block, possible overbore, hone with torque plates, factory crank and rods, full rotating assembly balance. I'll be putting in a set of KB167s; even though the piston in my 360 that broke was also a KB Hyper I understand it wasn't the piston's fault it broke (too much low-RPM cylinder pressure and detonation). Question: are my 360 connecting rods any stronger than the 318 ones?

I plan to reuse the stock Magnum heads that were on my 360, depending on how much extra I can spend I may take them to a local head porter and have them checked out for damage and possibly a valve job. I may even try my hand at a light porting job if I can find a junk head to practice on first. Point being I've read that stock Magnums support up to 400 HP and I want to get my 318 as close to that level as possible. I originally thought even with my Hughes retainers the max valve lift could only be around .525"; after checking, double and then triple-checking I found with a set of calipers that the distance between the bottom of the retainer (actually the valve locks as they poke out the bottom a bit) was a smidge over .560"!! That means I can safely run a much bigger cam with these heads than I thought but I know Magnums tend to "stall" in flow when they get much over .500" lift.

So that leaves cam and valvetrain... I had the smaller 256/262 adv. duration Lunati Voodoo HFT in my 360 and it was a torque monster. The rest of the drivetrain will consist of a 2600-stall converter in front of my 904 and 3.55 gears in the 8 3/4 rear end. I'm thinking of using the 268/276 cam which is advertised to have a power range of 1800-6200 RPM but with the 1.6 rockers the lift gets bumped up to .527" intake and .547" exhaust which may 'stretch' the power band just a bit? I'm also going to take the time to get the pushrod length spot-on and I plan to use Crower (best manufacturing tolerances from my 'research') Cam-Saver lifters (extra cam lobe oiling just for reliability) so I can rev this thing solidly to 6500 RPM on a regular basis.

I'll be reusing the RPM Air-Gap intake off my 360 as well as the Hedman shorty headers going into 2 1/4" head pipes (biggest I could fit around the steering/t-bars) and 2 1/2" exhaust with X-pipe after that. I'm not sure what to do for carburetion though; my 360 had a 750 cfm Street Demon carb that was just a hair too big on the primary side and that engine pulled a LOT of vacuum which made it difficult to get the transitional response just right; it idled at 900 RPM in gear with the throttle blades closed farther than I would have preferred. The 2.94 rear gears with 28" tires and factory 2100-stall converter definitely didn't help. You think it'll be too big for this smaller-but-much-higher HP engine? I'm tempted to just get a 650 vac. secondary Holley as I don't need the "Street" aspect of the Demon carb anymore.

More ideas to come along with progress pics; hopefully when I get paid at the end of the month I'll have enough reserve cash to drop the block, crank and rods at the machine shop to get checked out and not be afraid I'll be out of money when it's all done and ready.