[mattfranklin]

EDIT: I should add that all of the above advice here is great.

In a previous job I was a (not kidding) Decision Analyst. My job was to analyze investment decisions for a global energy company.

So my first question for you is... What is important to you? Or stakeholders, like spouse, whose support it will likely take to be successful?

1) If I had to guess I'd say most guys probably want reliability, performance, cool looks, fuel economy, all within a budget.

2) Or you might want power and be willing to sacrifice the others in pursuit of sub-11-sec drag times.

3) Or you might just want awesome looks and sound of a 350 with a 6-71 blower and open headers. And no hood.

Once you know that you can test all of your decision options against it. In other words, when I compare two different options, which one gets me more of what I want (power, reliability, economy, looks)?

In my case (still in progress) I wanted to go simple old-school, mostly follow the GM factory speed parts list available from '67-'72. That means my motor will be a clone of a Z-28 Camaro or LT-1 Corvette. Which makes it hard and tempting to veer from the path, because there are some really good cylinder head options (from Summit, and Dart, and others including the GM Vortec heads) to replace my crack-prone '624 heads (yep, I have the same ones as you). I want to get the best of the GM parts bin for that time frame so I'm stuck with the '186 Z-28/LT-1 heads. And I'm likely paying a $800-$1000 over what I'd pay for other pair of decent functional heads. But that's just me. Everyone has different preferences.

And this list of what is important to you shouldn't be taken lightly. You need to think about what you really want and weigh your options and test your priorities.

If I can offer the voice of experience, I'd encourage you to stick with something close to stock with your first engine. Something that you can find tune-up specs for or get parts for an any NAPA, or Car Quest, or O'Reilly's along the road. This recommendation is based on a '72 Ford F250 project I did several years ago. I went too wild with it and the 390 FE valve-train wound up being really temperamental and not fun.