Variable hydraulic lifters for 440 engine

If you adjust your idle-timing and mixture screws for the highest vacuum at idle, you would soon end up with 30 to 40 degrees advance, and an iron-headed engine that won't take a load without detonating, and takes three batteries to fire-up.
It is not the tuners job to force-feed the engine timing, especially not if it has a 3000TC. Our job is to install just the right amount of timing to put the point of maximum cylinder pressure, just after or near the point of most efficient energy transfer to the crank, for as much of the time as is possible, with the crummy timing controls that we have been given.
When you get a hi-torque engine, such as a hi-pressure 440, it is easily possible to generate far too much low-rpm street-torque, if the low-rpm timing is optimized. In this case, you don't even want the low-rpm timing to be optimized. It just makes the engine too hard to drive smoothly.
But in Wietse's case, he has a 3000TC and 4.10s, so this allows for a large degree of fudging of the low-rpm torque delivery.

I use the mixture screws as trimmers, just to augment the transfer fuel at idle, or to trim the cruise fuel.Sometimes I get lucky, and the same adjustment does both.

I like to set the idle rpm as low as possible, consistent with adequate oil pressure and more importantly, adequate oil delivery to the camlobes, and rockershafts. Since this 440 has; a HV pump,tons of oil pressure, and a 3000TC; I think it can be adjusted to idle about as slow as it is physically able to.
But I agree that 7 inches vacuum@850, is not right for this combo, and also suspect an air-leak, which seems to be supported by the bad behavior of the PCV, and the inability of the idle speed to be lowered without a ton of advance. I don't know much about BBs but I'm pretty sure that this is not normal, for this size of cam, even if it was in a 360.
Even my 292/292/108 cam, in the 367, had better manners. I read that this Mopar cam has 248 or 249 degrees of intake duration, and that is what mine measured at. 249* in a 367, compared to 237* in a 440, Ima thinking the 440 should be pretty tame in comparison.
And finally, I do not recall at what vacuum my 292 idled at, but, it did idle down to 550 with a nice steady lope. I'll guess it was at least 10 inches at 700 or I wouldda remembered.

So I am anxious to see the results of Brians-test.