[Will]

You say you want excellent low to midrange RPM performance and everything you've done adds up to that *EXCEPT* the heads.

The Edelbrock heads are not bad heads, and your engine should be a very strong performer, but the heads are total overkill for your goals. With that size cam you could easily have just run stock heads at 9:1 compression and maybe gotten even more low RPM torque out of it due to the higher port velocity present in the smaller ports.

Also, the standard Edelbrock Performer intake doesn't flow all that well, it's choking those heads. An RPM intake would be a much better match though you'll have problems fitting that under your Esprit's hood. Maybe a Torker II would be a good middle ground, especially if you up the cam.

If you really want to take advantage of those heads, consider a cam with about 15 degrees more duration @ .050" and some high ratio rocker arms. Of course you'll then have less low RPM torque but the increases in the midrange and upper RPMs will more than make up for it if you choose the right converter.

For the best of all possible worlds, I'd be looking at a custom solid roller from Comp based on the Xtreme energy street lobes. Without looking at the exact numbers in their catalog, I'd be looking to have a cam ground with approximately 226 @ .050" on the intake side and 230-232 on the exhaust side with a 110 lobe sep and use whatever rocker ratio is needed to get to about .580-.600" lift after subtracting lash. Such a cam would idle like a pussy cat with a distinct performance lope, plenty of vacuum, and tear your head off in the midrange. Use Crower rollers with the HiPPO option for the street.

Also, for low end power you really want to stay conservative on the header primary pipe sizing. It used to be that the smallest you could get in a round port configuration were 1-3/4" primaries. I dunno if that's still true or not, but you'd definitely be better off with some 1-5/8" primary tubes if low end and midrange is your goal.

Whether the TH350 lives a long life or not depends on who built it and what parts were used. They can be very tough trannies if built by the right people. I had one that I acquired in exchange for some work I did on a guy's car that had first been used in a bracket racing El Camino, then in a '69 Chevelle and eventually in my Nova. After 200K miles of abuse (behind relatively small engines compared to a Poncho) it was still going strong.