I think you are going to find that a 430 is not going to be a high winding engine. Even the Holman-Moody engines of the late fifties were limited to 6000rpm before they came apart. True, technology has come a long way since then, but it will cost a fortune to lighten up the bottom end and valvetrain. Then there is this continuing annoying problem of no cam blanks available and having to rely on a regrind.
If it is going to be a street engine, the torque alone will carry the weight of a 58 FORD easily. MEL never made an aluminum 4V intake available (to my knowledge) so you will have to rely on an early cast iron for induction. A carb spacer should only be used as a heat shield as varying spacer height in this instance is not going to get you much due to higher RPM restrictions. Even port maching the intake and manifold is questionable due to the low RPM potential of the engine. Porting the runners on the head will most likely not net a return on the investment either. You would need a flowbench to see if the effort is worth the time/expense.
The 58 MERC engine breathed fairly easily, but the earliest ones had valvetrain problems. There is TSB info available to identify these early engines and I need to get off my lazy butt and find a set.
Listen to Theo as he has one of those desktop dyno things and one can save you a lot of time amd money.
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