slant daily driver buildup

You can get a conversion cable to keep the pushbutton with a later trans. Much cooler than some POS aftermarket shifter.

Talk to your machine shop about going to the larger 318 valves (good plan). You will probably cut through the induction hardening and end up with 6 inset seats. This is a good thing and worth the bucks. The factory only used induction hardening because it was cheap.

The "Super Six" BBD and factory 2 bbl manifold are great if you can score them cheaply. But a small 4 barrel on an aftermarket intake would be a better bet for performance. Or even a 32/36 DGEV Weber on the factory 2 bbl intake. (I'm a pretty hardcore BBD hater. True, they have their place, but a performance engine is not it). You'll need to convert to cable throttle either way.