1972 318 street build

Don't worry about turning down your 318 crank- compared to a chevy they are super strong- lots of room
but if you have two cores chances are that one crank is good to go with a good cleaning and maybe polish
do not spend money where you do not have to
Stock rods- save some money and use SPS (same as Mopar performance) rod bolts but do do a quality rebuild- or not with low compression stock pistons and a mild hyd cam
forget studs for the bloc and heads
figure out which gas you are going to run on a daily basis and some here will dial in your compression goal for both cast iron and al heads
do not think about cam too much till you get compression dialed in as cam must match compresion, gears, converter, weight and your right foot and gas mileage goals- (which with a Holly double pumper will be abysmal so forget the eye candy/ bragging rights)
if you do go with the lower than stock pistons keep the cam stock duration but more lift
big cam and low compression is no fun with stock street gears/ converter
if you want a race car build a race car
now after you take the heads off and before removing the pistons measure how far down the bore they are at all four corners with the extension that comes out of your dial calipers and write it down and post it here
you can weigh a stock piston and if close and you use crank and rods as a set you will not have to pay for a balance job
for your application stock 4 bbl manifold and carb will work as well (not quite as light is the only advantage to aluminum dual plane without spending lots of money)
spend your money on first good headers- second good heads (or vice versa) put off cam till you get compression, headers, and heads figured out
The cast iron head exhaust needs a different cam (longer exhaust) and headers (smaller dia)than an aluminum head or the aftermarket "EQ head or the late 308 head))
Virtual build- stick with it
measure twice cut once
do a spreadsheet to track your virtual costs/ benefits
YOU CAN GET ANY COMPRESSION YOU WANT
Track Head CC's on your spread sheet and piston CC's
answer the gas question