my slant buildup

ok now to get into the engine. Sorry, this will turn out a long read. Lets see how my thoughts compare to yours

I was at the Indy swap last year (last event before COVID BS shut the world down, nother story)
After I had left, and got a phone call from a long time Mopar buddy of mine that I met by chance in the aisles. (and lives kind of down that way) He knew some of what I was after and would keep an eye out. I'd gone right by this booth and missed what he saw. he called and asked asked if I wanted a motor..... and if I was still there wandering around. the seller had about 1/2 of it in the building (of which I missed all of that, even) and the rest in his van, in the parking lot. I wanted just the super 6 stack/ but the deal was "all or none".... so I trusted my buddy Glenn to make the best deal he could, and haul it home for me..... I got most of a complete 74 slant 6, minus a few bolts, rods and pistons. plus a cheap engine stand, a couple extra distributors and old carbs.
before I found this, my thoughts had been to build up one of the V8s I have here for that truck..... but now that I had a pile of slant parts, I figured "why not build a /6 again"?
I had rode down with another buddy, who happens to have a 12 sec (/6 powered!) A body..... and we followed @68barracuda to a local BBQ joint to eat before we got on the road, and seeing and hearing his truck sealed the deal for me..... he's got an 83 short bed with (of course) a slant but he has a 4 speed.... and hearing how he pulls a race car on a trailer and holds his own. and I knew that even if I upgraded it to "1 ton" suspension that legally I would never be able to tow more than this truck was originally rated for, even if I "built it up". so this truck may as well keep a slant under the hood.
If I can drive it daily, get out of my own way, and pull my popup or my utility trailer (usually with a garden tractor or 2 on it) it will work for me. never did plan on it being a "race truck". though I am still toying with the idea of adding a turbo somewhere along the line-- maybe)

so after I took stock of my new-old slant and discovered what I had (and didn't) I took the block to the machine shop for evaluation, to see if it was a worthy block and crank and "what it would take" to clean up and put the tolerances back in spec.
I made the mistake of telling the machine shop "I wasn't in a hurry". they had my block and crank for 9 months as a result. They have 2 slant heads right now... heads that I experimented with bowl hogging and porting fearing all the while I'd go "too far". I took them 2 bare heads (with parts to build them with) hoping I could get at least 1 good head out of the pair. that remains to be seen.
I didnt go in to tell the machine shop to "bore it THIS much" just to bore it out as needed to clean up. It ended up at 20-over. I was surprised because I have asked for that at (other) machine shops on past builds for this, and none of the other machine shops would dare stop boring, before they got to 30-over.... even though Id asked for 20 if those engines would clean up there... Jeep 4.0s, 318s and a 360 in the past. I got 30-over whether I wanted them at that point or not.