I'm still not eating my hat until Jay can verify what happened later on. I will keep some real maple syrup handy though..........

No Drag Week participant here but....see what Mark Williams says about Richmond's street versus race gears

http://www.markwilliams.com/ringpin.aspx

I've run both over the years (mainly Richmond) but would not hesitate to run the softer race gears in a car that will see occasional to moderate drag use. What really makes a difference is someone with a heavy car, stick, lots of hp, lots of slick and a dump-the-clutch launch at WOT. The lack of a trans brake and the somewhat forgiving nature of an auto trans has helped Jay a bunch, I'm sure.  Btw, the 'softer' material in race gears has only marginally lower Rockwell numbers and the material spec is pretty close too....it's not that much different than street gears.

Hey Bill,

Good to see you're still kickin'.....over here at least! Glad to see your post.

When you swapped in the new oil pumps (HD or Std) did the hot idle oil pressure change? From your reply, it appears not to have changed. If so, I'd suspect as Jay mentioned internal oil leaks (from a variety of sources) that are bleeding off oil before it hits the lifters. The 20-25 psi hot idle is pretty low for a new build and a new pump, if that was the issue, should have raised your psi at both  ends of the scale.

As for options, one way to eliminate the lifter variable is to pop the intake and replace them. Kinda' iffy using new lifters on a broken in cam but it's been done before. I'd also make sure you get a good quality Johnson lifter (see link, others also sell them) as it is possible the supplied lifters were cheapies.

http://www.flatlanderracing.com/lifters-427feshell.html

But, it seems a better track would be to yank the engine and tear it down for a full inspection of all clearances and a check for any cracks in the cam tunnel-to-main bearing saddle areas.
  

Very cool find and how lucky! It almost screams to be in a Hollywood movie, like a re-make of the Untouchables or a 30's era gangster movie.

But please, no Chevy engine!

so we can chip in and air drop some refreshments to keep that Shelby work going....LOL! Light or regular? 

http://www.startribune.com/politics/blogs/125490398.html

For Jason and the Argonauts whom the gods put through numerous trials before final success. That or Hercules, once again for all the trials and tribulations

Nice! 

Seems like we've been here before. The benefits of the plastic intake design though are many...wonder how hard it would be, using the old PSE aluminum base, to cast-up a composite intake using much more modern 351C intakes (CHI, Trickflow etc.) with the finished aluminum version as a mold pattern? Maybe you were right Jay, a whole new set of FE intake comparos may be in the offing.

http://www.popularhotrodding.com/tech/1107phr_afr_titan_series_intake_manifolds/index.html