Well first off you do know that you have to fly cut your pistons for the valves to clear on the stock bottom end even if you use the stock 5.0 cam. But to answer your question i have a stock bottom end, afr 185cc heads and comp cams 35-518-8 cam. Teh cam has .555 and .565 lift at .050. My piston to valve clearence with this cam and the fly cut pistons and a 39k head gasket was ZERO. LOL So i got SCE head gasket that was 62k thick, and now my valve cleaence on the intake is 21k. So my advice is to go no bigger than the cam i chose or else it gonna be a headache. If you want to know where to get a tool you can rent to flycut ur pistons, or the head gasket part number or if you have any other questions feel free to email me at [email protected]! It was a headache to get it all squared away.
MM&FF would tell you yes, but I say they're full of ****. You're taking the rotating assembly a few grams out of balance. Compared to the 50oz. balance, what's a few grams? Unless you're going to zing the stock bottom end to 7200 or so, there isn't anything to worry about.
AFR 185 would work VERY well on a 302 with different pistons. With such a "big" cylinder head on a stock bottom end 302, you're going to have to flycut the hell out of the pistons and you're going to lose a TON of compression in the process.