440 what am I missing here?

With an Edelbrock performer RPM and iron exhaust manifolds, it's not necessarily be so much about the peak torque as it should produce over 500 pound feet of torque. What's is important is it's going to make gobs of torque down low near the present converters stall speed. Knowing how tight B&M converters tend to be concerning rated vs actual stall, I would put the cam in straight up so your optimizing the lower end of the rated range of the cam and intake together. I did also notice AndyF used a 2 inch super sucker spacers I had recommended in the tech article and gained more power with it. But he also tried an Edelbrock victor on the same combination with the iron manifolds and it killed as much power as the larger cam they had used. You've got those two combined working against you right now. When you change both, instead of power braking it to get the tires spinning, you'll be feathering the throttle to keep the tires from going up in smoke.