Reverse coolant flow is another big difference to me. Send the coolant to the heads first. Hopefully I didn't miss someone bringing this up. Lots for an A.D.D. guy to read here. Lol!
I have a buddy that used to brag about running 87 octane in his SBC Camaro with no problem/ping. One day he was talking about it in his garage. I asked him if he ever looked at his spark plugs with a magnifying glass. We pulled one out and had a look. Covered with aluminum particles. He runs 93 octane now.
