Great guy and always willing to help.
Plus he could out talk Ted Nugent once he got wound up!

Lots of SOHC info will be lost without him around.

When I was looking for a car to put the cammer into, I also was looking at how to hookup power steering in case the selected car came with it.  Happened upon an earlier (pre '66) car w/ a 352 that had a power steering pump that hung towards the drivers side low down off a single cast/nodular iron bracket that bolted with 2 bolts to the water pump.  The pump rotated on the mount to adjust the belt.  The reservoir (with internal filter) was mounted to the pump (quite small) but you could easily use a remote mount with a hose.  Still have it somewhere.  If the water pump has the two mount holes (tapped) you could use one of these.  Was a good factory solution to the pump mounting.

Ended up the selected car had no power anything.  Bitch to park.

Should never connect an electrical choke to the coil or any part of the ignition circuit.  Find a switched connection/terminal that is not in the ignition system and use instead.  Just makes too many problems.

Where is the PCV valve located?  Is it upright or does it have a spring?  Where is the crankcase vented from?  The back of the intake or the valve covers?  With that much oil missing, I would think there would be evidence of oil all around and under the carb, on the floor of the intake manifold.

The headers in my '67 started life as a factory set (maker unknown) for a '64 that I got from Jim Barillaro when he was still in CT.  Front tubes on both sides go straight down and back under the cross member and the back cylinder tubes are very distorted and cramped to fit through and around everything.  Spent about two weeks on my back gas welding these things.  Surely not very beautiful, but they did work.  Covered them with heat tape and the noise was much better.  Think the pipes are 2.25" or 2.125" not sure/can't remember.  Had to buy the collector which was for a 4" tube which got necked to 3.5" before hooking to the 3" exhaust.  Dumps in front of the rear end (not legal in NH).

Go to the Dyno page.  Brent Lykins built an engine pretty close to your parts list and got 525 hp and 588 tq.  Sounds like a killer street engine.

Just to be clear; Detroit Diesels don't really use the "blower" to pressurize the air boxes rather the Rootes type pump is used to scavenge the exhaust out of the cylinder through the open exhaust valves, w/ fresh air which is introduced through the cylinder ports which are uncovered by the piston at the bottom of its stroke.  The original manual for the 53 Series (don't have a 71 series) shows that the air box pressure w/ maximum exhaust back pressure should be in the range of 4-4.5psi for a non-turboed engine.  So on startup, there is little to no pressure in the air box.  If the exhaust back pressure is lowered, the air box pressure lowers too.  Turbo engines can see 18psi+ in the air box, but they have stronger parts associated with the addition of the turbo.  Just another piece of useless info, sorry. 

Just to add my useless thoughts:
Had exactly the same issue w/ the white car after installing the cammer.  First, had to change the power valve in the stock BV Holley from the 6.5 (stock) to a 3.5, again due to low idle vacuum.  You could see the gas dribble out the boosters at idle as the 6.5 was part open.  Second, the surging at 50-55mph road speed w/ a 3.5 rear w/ 28" tires was very annoying.  Tried messing with the timing and got nowhere.  Finally added 3.7 rear gears and it was at least drivable.  Drove to Ohio with 3.7's.  Final solution; used 4.56 gears.  Just don't drive much over 55 on highway.  Stock Ford cams & stock pistons; just the overlap and duration is such that drivability is tough.  Would be great on a superspeedway! (As designed).

Car still stuck in garage!
Thanks