bold move calling out mike like that. probably not the best way to get good information either.
the bottom line here is this:
You're going to sit here and tell us it's cheaper to source oversized valves, do head work, spend money on a headgasket kit, etc... so you can crib up a lackluster cam?
Mike didn't mention I have a flow bench as well, and without channeling the power of the swedes I can't really say there are drastic gains to be had with bigger valves and exhaust porting. Further, the bulk of the airflow you're going to get from an 8v is in the mid-lift regions, going higher on the lift does help some, but it's not some kind of panacea of performance. You will find on the cams that work well, longer duration is more favorable than additional lift, overlap somewhat be damned... and this has held true for quite some time. Of course there are limitations to this rule, and eventually cubic dollar bills come in to play to go further.
The cars that have always performed well on the dyno(s) that I've tuned have pretty much all had either the ipd turbo or the enem v15. Just about everything else has underperformed for one reason or another. The oe b230 intake manifold leaves a lot to be desired, the exhaust manifold likely starts to get tight at higher rpms (but that's relative as well), to run the bigger cams you need pretty extensive head work, springs, different buckets, the list goes on.
so for a 2k build... skip the cam, get a 16t or a t3-60 trim, exhaust, engine management, and bigger bigger fuel injectors. if you still have some space left over in the performance budget, consider a better (not ebay-those are hot garbage as well, even on 170hp low boost setups) intercooler. the rest of your money and time should be spent doing things like brakes, suspension, the sorts of things that will help on the auto-x part of the competition, because you're not going to make waves with a nearly stock 8v for the drag race part of the event.