Break in question . burned paint?

Good information! What I have been reading on the Torker II 440, it's actually pretty good on a 440, and it does respond positively to a one inch spacer. It's still small on a 512 but there are worse manifolds you can use. More than likely, the out of the box carb jet settings are on the lean side and the engine may also positively respond to a few more degrees of timing. If you have an infrared thermometer, check the actual header tube temps. Are those the spark plugs that TFS recommends? Can you give us a close up of the business end? Is there a thermostat and what was the coolant temperature?