On my Cammer, I set initial at 10 degrees.  That yielded 4.5" of vacuum.  I mention this is a reference for you since you are at eight.  In other words, you may not pick up "much" by increasing the initial timing.

I was 12:1 and Crower custom-ground cams with .557 lift at .050 and the duration was quite a bit - forget the exact figure.

I would like to give my impressions on running a street-driven SOHC car for more than three years:

Specs are 452 inches, venolia pistons and carrillo rods, CR is ~12:1, ignition is electronic, an 850 DP on the single 4V intake, and Crower cams.

Engine is in a CSX4000 Series Cobra and it has been street-driven - for a lot of enjoyment.

I believe the most important factor that has contributed to streetability is the electronic ignition.  Distributor is a Mallory magnetic-triggered unit with an MSD 6AL box behind it.  And likely choosing 3.5" power valves for the DP.  Car will never load up, same plugs in it the whole time.  I had a whopping 4.5" of manifold vacuum.

And I believe the single most important factor in contributing to healthy power levels was choosing to keep the CR close to what a stock crate motor had.  Used just slightly thicker head gaskets than stock.  Yes, I run a 50/50 mix of 110 and 91, but never in a million years would I denigrate what the Ford engineers came up with originally.  I guess my point is you can run a relatively high CR on such a motor and street drive it - provided you are willing to run a mixture of race gas.

Bill, I know that Ranchero you speak of and yes it only nade 380 HP - low CR.

I ran this car on a Mustang chassis dyno early on when I was troubleshooting a break-up at 3000 RPM.  At the time it had a Mallory Unilite and switching to the magentic-triggered unit instead solved that problem.  Off idle, it made 490 ft. lbs.  Wasn't really interested in flogging the motor at this stage, so just a quick observation of power level.

I would say I have every bit of 600 HP and the amount of torque is just staggering.  Yes, it's a light car, but you can drive off any corner in 4th gear - from 1000 RPM with nary a stumble.  And that is would I would call streetable.

As I said, the car doesn't overheat, doesn't load up - I had a tunnel-port that was less streetable than this combination.  In fact, car runs exactly the same way each time I drive it.  Idles at 1000 rpm, doesn't run-on - I have not had to adjust anything really in over three years.  Adjusted the valves once and took some slack out of the chain once.