ThisIsLivin, Sounds like you've put your time into that beast for sure. I will drill the thermostats I have. Im assuming the 3 dimples that are already there. Your CD-1 sounds nice, wish I had known about that as an option when I was looking. My 6M-3L does have start retard, or is it start, retard.. lol.. I have it set for a 10* retard at start up. Then the springs & limit bushings in the distributor are set for all in at around 2700 if I remember correctly with a 34* max timing. We did 36* on the dyno but that was on VP110 I think.
On the exhaust, your talking about the drains where the cooling water enters the exhaust stream by design of the headers? Ive seen a bunch of different designs. my current tails have only 3 drain holes as you can see by my pic. I guess I was thinking you meant something else you were tapping into the tails yourself.
Anyway, I wish I could have cam'd up more & squeak out some more ponies but with the wet exhaust, according to the cam wizards, im at max duration now. 611/636 is still far better than the 385's they were at. who knows, maybe some day Ill change my mind & decide to be "obnoxious" & go dry. lol I still have I believe .0245 piston to valve clearance left. ;)



https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.off...d8c1f50fee.jpg
drilling these 3 dimples
https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.off...9936b88677.jpg
https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.off...21dd8ec7f1.jpg
Water drains into exhaust streamhttps://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.off...31dcf0e93.jpeg
Room to grow