360 Advice Needed - Autocross / Street Engine Build

Yes you can. It does like you say (makes the intake closing later), and changing the installed cam timing is a common way to do this. It is not uncommon for cams get advanced to make up for lower compression engines; you're going in the opposite direction. And that is one reason why the big drag engines are running 12-13:1 SCR or more....huge cams, and no DCR at all if the SCR is not driven way up.

The common changes are:
More advanced = lower RPM torque and quicker drop off in high RPM HP
More retarded = the opposite
Google for 'cam timing effects' and you will find all sorts of info. QUANTIFYING those changes versus so many degrees of cam change is the trick.

BTW, it is common these days for cams like these to come with some ground-in advance. Perhaps this is to make the bigger cams work better for low end torque loss with longer duration cams, but it is very common.

RF360 suggested a longer duration cam for this very reason: to lower DCR. But that comes with longer overlap and the detrimental effects on low RPM operations, economy, etc. Another way to approach this is to go with a wider LSA. If you kept the same ICL, with a 112 LSA the intake closing will be 2 degrees later; with a 114 LSA, the intake closing will be 4 degrees later. Then you can lower DCR without the long overlaps. If you browse the cam catalogs, you will see that torque-oriented cam are on 112 and 114 LSA's.

And that has been done before. I know few people on this site old enough to remember this, but after gas doubled in price after the Arab oil embargo in '73, a series of cams came out to do just this: ground on 114 LSA's with a long advertised duration for a later intake closing to keep DCR under control on hi comp engines, but got much better mileage using very slow ramps to a narrow .050" lift duration. Crane sold them as 'HE' series cams (hydraulic economy).

You are going down the same road I went down 40+ years ago: the pistons wanted were 11.2 SCR, too high for pump gas. (They had 'quench domes', used to achieve quench in open chambers.) So I ended up with grinding out 6-7 cc's per chamber and used a wide LSA HE cam... and which lowered DCR to around 8.3-8.4. There were no Excel spreadsheets or internet, and so I did not understand DCR at the time LOL... there was just the concept of 'effective' CR. Ended up with 10.2 SCR on iron heads so still had to be careful on timing, but it ran 93 with no issues ever and pulled hard from 2500 to 6500, on a stock TC. It could have had stepped up HP with a bit longer .050" duration cam on the same LSA and advertised duration, but this was an 'all-around' car so it was good for my use.

And I think all the comments from the other west coasters on 91 octane carry a lot of value; that really seems to be a different animal than 93 like back here in the east. Perhaps some of the Canadian 91 users will chime in.