Love the build #s. I`m old school too. Had a `52 F1 w/ a `50 Olds rocket 88 303 ci w/ a Hurst adapter plate and the orig 3 in the tree. Bored and stroked,shaved and decked, ported and polished, and balanced through the clutch. Vintage Wieand hi-rise w/ trip Strom 97`s on a crappy progressive linkage. Didn`t have a flow meter as a kid and it was a long tune session to get em synched, but when it was right it was FUN. I too chose a less radical duration. What good is torque if if comes in @3500? I ran a 260/512 and it would roast em all day w/ the granny and well into 2`nd. It was 9 different colors and a great sleeper w/ the sneaky cable gate exhaust cut outs and steel wheels. Long before I`d ever heard of rat rods.
Most go fast boats are way over cammed and idle poorly. Did those 396 heads cc the same as the 454`s after the port and valve work or did it bump the comp a tad. Sounded like 10-1 to me but it may have been the beer and the awesome chrome yellow paint job. Looks like you`ve got room for a livewell.
GFS