Rich, I am very surprised that Keith uses the Edelbrock heads, especially considering that they're 2V heads. Then again, guys like Keith, Barry R. Kasse and others are so talented they could drill a hole in a brick and make it flow crazy numbers!
As you know, Cleveland's are sort of like FE's, everyone can build them and make power, but the real deep specialists are where the cutting edge resides. Keith is certainly cutting edge in the FE world, but I think there are others who occupy that niche in the Cleveland world. Scotty Johnson out in Seattle and Mark McKeown (sp?) in Maryland are two that come to mind, of course there are many more. You will NEVER see a set of Edelbrock heads on an engine that these guys build. The key, I believe, is in your last sentence. Imagine, with all that time and money that Keith put into these Edelbrock heads, what incredible results he would have had if he had started with a set of 3V's that flowed almost that much out of the box? Keith is a genius with engines, he supplied the vast majority of the parts for my engine, and I certainly respect him and his talents.
I just think that in the Cleveland world, there are MUCH better choices than the Edelbrock's. All the Cleveland development, and the cutting edge for everything Cleveland, comes from the Aussies, both CHI and AFD. They never had much in the way of Windsors down there, the Cleveland was really the only small block widely available from Ford, just as the Windsor was up here. If you want state of the art Windsor heads (ZZZZzzzzzz
), you buy American. If you want state of the art heads for the Cleveland, you buy Aussie. It's just the way it is.
Personally, I still think the Cleveland is the most awesome small block out there, I have no doubt that if Shelby had continued making Cobras into the late 60's and early 70's, they would have had Cleveland's in them. A awesome big block canted valve head on a small block - you just can't beat that combination.