will J heads work on a 318? And many many more questions.

NO, I think that cam is too big for 302 heads in stock form. If you go with the swirl-port 302s, make sure you step down to a cam with lift more around .450" on the intakes; that's about the most stock 302 heads will take. If you port them well and gasket-match them to the Weiand intake then I'd say you could try that Crower cam. Also, with the Crower cam I think 9.0:1 compression would be the bare minimum; 9.5:1 would be better, and 10:1 would be the best.

That cam would also work well with J heads (and the Weiand intake, or possibly the Edelbrock RPM which is the next step up in size I think) but in this case compression is even more vital... at this point I'd strongly recommend some shorter gears and/or a higher stall converter because bottom end might begin to suffer with the larger "non-swirl" ports.

Other than the valve guides hitting the retainer, how is it too big? Considering a flat tappet cam doesn't spend much time with the valve open at max, and a 302 head 318 will pull decent to 6K......

Just the owner of more than one 302 headed motor here curious about your theory.