definitely needs something fixed. back in the day, the brothers XB fairmont and XB panelvan would have been fired up and out the driveway in 30 seconds and straight down the road. even with the windscreens covered in ice before hand. 

 

Its about 6 pumps and give it a kick in the guts and then give it 5 minutes on half choke before it'll be drivable...lol

would have assumed it would start easy with a pull of the choke, 2 pumps of accelerator and turn the key. ease off the choke as it feels like it wants it.    efi is simple though, takes the brain work out of it, also for tuning you can often get them to self learn from a base tune if you have enough smarts to deal with it .   

I was thinking 10:1 comp and regraphed dizzy or streetfire for either builds   I can get the log head redone with big valves, porting, heavy duty valves springs and a 2V conversion for $1800 which isnt as expensive as what I thought it'd cost.   Definately gunna run EFI....the old strommy and points dizzy currently on the car make cold starts a nightmare out this way of a morning.

something that revs to 5500 odd will be doughy in the lower revs from My experience,  but not sure how far mine was tuned (did it have a bump in compression ratio? regraphed dissy? cam timing degree'd in? carby tuning properly etc? 
  the manual box and 3.45/3.7 diff ratio will help a lot though. 

Is a 230ish degree cam considered big in a 250?

enjoy it as is for longer before deciding.

bonus for the crossflow is also that you can go back to the current combo if you don't like it being highly strung with the big cam. 

I have two ideas currently floating in my head..   One involves using the EFI crossflow, fitting a crow 14650 cam, rebuild the head with oversized valves, bore 30 thou over and using a J3 chip and the factory EFI manifold.   The second is to rebuild the original engine with a similer cam to the 14650 xflow cam. Rebuild the head with a 2V conversion to the log and oversized valves. Bore 30 thou, and fit a holley Sniper BBD EFI kit to it and a streetfire ignition module.   Both would be fitted to the T5 and 3.45 or 3.73 gears and dual 2 inch system that is currently fitted.   The Xflow would make the most power I would assume, but the log motor would look pretty stock under bonnet and retain the classic 250 look but would probably be down 50hp or so over the Xflow.   I suspect the pre xflow would be a more expensive build due to the required head work and the holley EFI system.   I hate decisions....

bump.. for new members of late   

Should be easy to do.    Back in the day, Dick Johnson used the "SVO" name plate to build two XF SVO falcons. They were naturally aspirated, fuel injected crossflows, and produced around 150kw (200hp) that is not bad with basic technology and early injection tuning.    250hp should be easy with today's technology, cams, machining etc etc. 

I don't think you're asking too much, but perhaps trying to overcomplicate it by wanting to run E series manifolds.    Dick Johnson also teamed up with HKS to build turbo crossflow falcons, which ran HKS piggyback ECUs. they were good for 159kw in unleaded form. I have one those turbo kits for my car, and as far as i am concerned, with a modern Haltech ECU, better cam and things like roller rockers etc. I believe ill achieve way more than its original 159kw using the same turbo kit.