440 Help Needed

Let's sort out some of the BS here.
- we are talking about a 50+ yr old engine. Who knows if it is original or has been rebuilt with the compression ratio reduced. That could be one explanation for the good idle with 25* BTDC....or it just likes 25*.
- if it 'idled great' with 38* BTDC, why is it that 25* is too much, even with a smaller cam. My 455, with 9.8:1 CR, a long stroke engine, idled best with 32* BTDC with a 235/228* @ 050, 110 LSA cam.
- I ran a custom ground Crower 230/230 @ 050, 108 LSA, HFT cam in my 440. It was an absolute pig on the road, idled rough, came out after two weeks. Similar overlap to the OPs cam.
- 'So much detonation off idle'. Vac goes to zero when you nail it, & 17* of vac adv is NOT a ton of vac adv. MVA [ &/or a lot of initial timing ] cools the engine. A hot engine detonates more easily than a cool engine, so using MVA wards off detonation. Perfect example is my 66 GTO: it left the showroom idling at 26* [ 6* init + 20* MVA ]. 10.75:1 CR. Mild cam 197/212 @ 050, 113 LSA. That would have to be up around 200 psi cranking pressure maybe more, didn't detonate.
- the reason Erson put that note in the catalog is.....because he knew what he was talking about. It is called the rod/stroke ratio. The 440 has one of the highest out of the popular engines, 1.80. Other engines: 318 1.84, 360 1.71, 454 1.53, 350 Chev 1.63, 351C 1.65, 400 C 1.64, 455 Buick 1.69, 455 Olds 1.58, 455 Pont 1.57.
The shorter r/s ratio has the piston accelerating away from TDC faster than a large r/s; this pulls in more air at the start of the intake stroke. Why do stroker combos such as the 383 Chev & 408 Mopar punch above their weight? The only architecture change is the stroke. I only quoted part of Erson. Here is the full quote:
'When ordering a cam to be used in a standard passsenger car chassis with torque flyte trans, beware of too much duration. Although the longer duration cam will make more hp, the loss of torque at low rpm will more than offset the gain at the top end & the ET will suffer.'
- another quote, this one about idle timing. It is in a carb book, not an ign book [ hmmm....] by D. Vizard. "The optimum idle advance is typically 35-40* for a short cammed street engine & [ though not commonly realized ] as much as 50* for a street/strip engine."