[Oldsguy]

I know that Rhoads advertises that they bleeed down at lower rpm's effectively shortening the duration of a cam and the heighth of the lift but I have had no experience with them so I can't vouch for their effectiveness. However, I have stabbed a few cams before and it seems to me if you are going to tear down the engine far enough to change the lifters a few more hours of time to r/r the cam would be worth it. Drain coolant, remove radiator, water pump, front cover and that's about it, oh and the accessories and brackets as applicable. But still, I would go with a full cam/lifter change myself.

Oh, you should see if you can find any vacumm leaks and see if you can verify that you also have distributor vacumm advance, there is a vacumm pump you can attach that "sucks" better than you can (did that sound right???). This may be the cause of the car being doggy but you are right, that cam does sound pretty big with that much duration. Maybe someone can double check the advertised duration for a W31 cam. I think I have some stuff at home that might help.