[olddog]

I pulled a book I have that is full of SB Ford combinations that were dynoed, and read through it last night. Interestingly they did a 302 with AFR-165 heads (out of the box - no port work) and a cam very close to the one you mentioned. it had a very flat torque curve. I was surprised to see that it pulled all the way to 5800 rpm where the valves floated. A comment that the springs were of poor quality and AFR no longer used those springs. It looked like the the engine would have peaked on Hp a bit north of 6000 rpm had it not floated.

They also did a 331 with AFR-185 heads (out of the box) and a cam a bit bigger like I suggested. The engine had a big step up in torque. Still fairly flat curve, but the torque did start dropping off more quickly by 5500 rpm.

If the port work on your AFR-165 heads improved the flow a fair amount, you may be fairly close to an out of the box set of AFR-185 heads. Since the short block and heads are already picked, the only thing left to work with is the cam, intake and exhaust. As I said a little more cam. I like the Edel air gap (dual plane) intake. I believe in step tube headers. I don't know enough on headers to say much more. Other than exhaust can make a huge difference on power.

Good luck.