[Alan Roehrich]

Lew,
I strongly suggest 7/16" screw in studs and guide plates for 3/8" pushrods. Yes, all of that is legal, and as far as I'm concerned, necessary. You need a set of tool steel retainers, they're lighter and stiffer. You need to talk to your cam guy about spring pressure. The days of a specified spring installed height and pressure are long gone.

My concern here is that from what you posted, your machinist appears to not be intimately familiar with Stock Eliminator. A great deal of the "secret" to getting a car to run in Stock is in the heads, and the vast majority of people, even those that do great quality work, do not know what to do to a set of heads for a Stock Eliminator engine. You can give up a ton of power that way. It can mean the difference between a car that struggles to run 3-4 tenths under the index in decent air, and a car that will run 6-7 tenths under the index in crappy air. It is that critical. And given that good castings are very hard to find, you can't afford too many mistakes.