I would be more than a little curious at exactly why they bent.

If it is an interference issue the guides/valves are likely scored. If the valves are not bent it would be a surprise to me as they are pretty delicate that way. Over-revved or seized, either way they hit the pistons. I would have to look, pull the valves and put them back in the grinder to prove they are straight. These valves may seal up again with the pressure of combustion, but it seems likely this will raise it's ugly head down the road a ways, just after the "warranty" is past...

 "Vapor lock" is typically liquid fuel turning to vapor (boiling).  Any reduction of pressure will lower the boiling point. This happens on the "suction" or low pressure side of the system (pump) and with any increase in altitude. This is why electric fuel pumps should be mounted as far from the engine as possible, maintaining pressure all the way to the carburetor. My experience with vapor lock started with flathead V-8's which had to lift the fuel up to the top of the engine (bad, really bad!) Later on Ford caught up and mounted the fuel pump as low as practical, but today with alcohol in the fuel and a combination of things like a small diameter fuel line in close proximity with engine exhaust heat, and even heat reflected up from a hot highway, this is a bigger problem than ever for the old fuel systems. Climbing a mountain pass on a hot day couldn't be a worse set of circumstances.
Ford had a similar problem early on by mounting the water pump on the cylinder head, that centrifugal pump will not pump steam! Big problem, catastrophic - once it boiled you were not going to cool it down using the water pump, and it took them about seven years to move the water pumps down as low as they could ('28-'36) and it was a few more years before they adde a pressure cap to raise the boiling point!

Whoever put the first fuel pump right inside the tank, submerged in the fuel was a genius..

The first FE block I ever "picked" up was a warrantied 390 short-block laying around the shop at the Ford dealer I worked at. It had a pin-hole leak about half-way down a cyl's bore.  There's even a part in the shop manuals that show where leaks can and can not be repaired. I always kept it in my mind that "boring" a block could uncover a pin-hole, though I never heard of it happening to anyone..

I've had that happen more than once, but only when installing sleeves, and then it doesn't matter...

Thinking out loud on the "side-oiler"
My own observation is that a lot of "top oilers" cracked the bulkhead at the drilled oil hole from cam to crank. It seems the combination of the cast groove around the cam bearing bore and the drilled hole (which is larger on the 427's) weakened the bulkhead and may contribute to block failure at high loading. An elegant solution is to just eliminate the cast groove and the drilled hole. Which is the side-oiler.
(Of course the "cammer" was in the works then and that oil rifle detail solves both problems.
For me, when searching for a good 427 block, that "crack" was the first thing to inspect, and I saw more than one)

The "extra" relief valve may be as simple as an over pressure device. Oil filters will fail at pressures over 100 psi.

 My understanding is you have stock 352 cylinder heads...
There are many new choices available today that even out of the box will offer significant improvement over those.

I have installed them with the holes up once... They failed in the same manner. There was another similar failure a few months ago on the other forum.
(In my case it was a mistake, I know better but rolled the engine on the stand after installing each end and installed the three center bearings exactly wrong.
(There is quite a bit of internet noise about the "dynamic wedge" but I think the science comes more from splash oiling or gravity oiling than with a fully pressurized system,  the cam moves with rpms creating a slight wedge with the holes at 6:00. If you put the holes "up" in the bearing clearance you just generated a local loss in oil pressure).
The side oiler blueprints are specific, holes at 6:00. I'm surprised there are no blueprints out there for a center-oiler.
Jake R

As Jay said, the vacuum advance is part of the total timing, but for a street car 45 + degrees will be fine at partial throttle or cruise and give you significantly better fuel economy. Roughly 20%. As soon as you approach WOT the vacuum advance will drop out and you will then be on the mechanical curve only.

do you plug the vacuum line back in and then the timing goes up to about 45 to 50 degrees ? the vacuum is not part of total timing ?

 

Thank you very much.  I will start hunting parts.

One other question I have is just a general engine build question.  If you're building an engine and there is a target rpm should you plan peak just a tad beyond that?  For example I'm gonna build an engine that makes peak power at cruising rpm, 3k.  Would it be smart to actually move the max to about 3500 so there is something left after I hit cruising speed?  I can see why yes and why no.

Also, short duration Higher lift for torque because it keeps the pressures up, correct?

Thanks again
Will

With a truck engine, the  work begins when you are pulling a grade, WOT for the duration. Usually (depending on how many gears you have) the engine will settle in and pull the grade at the designed maximum torque. A little rpm overlap is good so that you have time to shift gears.  (horsepower rating at a little higher rpm than the torque) But a broad powerband is what you want, and  this will be determined by the cam.

Cruise rpm is not so important, you want to be able to cruise with a relatively strong vacuum signal.