With all the work that's been done to it lately I'm finding the XB becoming a very fun car to drive, it cruises very nicely, it just feels underpowered compared to what I'm used too   If i can get close to 250hp, bout the same as the old 2V 351 in the XA-XB's it'll be one sweet ride. It handles pretty good now and is a bit chuckable through corners, it has tons of grip...just need more POWWWWAAAAAA

Yeah, carby needs a kit thru it, and it probably wants an new set of points or at least a good clean up, I haven't touched most of that yet as I'm just going to replace most of with better later model gear.   I did find the more carby cleaner I spray on the carb and in to it makes it run better afterwards, and I was able to get rid of 99.9% of the preignition mucking around with the timing and idle.   Once is actually warms up it runs pretty good, pretty smooth and the more I drive it I've found the fuel economy is getting a bit better, must be clearing out all the cob webs, still a little choppy on the idle but it sounds lumpy as hell however...hahahaha 

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....