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Paul,
I don't think you paid too much. There's a lot of demand for 445s and 210's and it's growing as they get rarer.
About your planned engine swap: I don't want you to think that I'm a party-pooper, and I certainly am no purist. Also, take into consideration that I'm a geezer, and geezerdom tends to make one less adventurous. Still, let me put in my $0.02 worth based on my experience with my '62 PV544. It has an ordinary B20 with a carbed F head and a K cam in it. During the rebuilt, a little was taken off the head and off the deck - mostly a flattening operation. I'm probably somewhere at around 9.6/1 compression. (It handles regular gas nicely.) It has a two-inch exhaust with a 240 Turbo muffler. Also a J-type M41. Standard suspension, standard brakes, 5.5" Bronco II rims with 185/65s on them.
In this essentially, basic, pussy cat guise, I feel that the car has far more power than is necessary for regular street and highway use. The problem is not in the brakes, because the car is light enough for the drum brakes to haul it down from any speed within a safe distance. It is its shape combined with its low weight that makes it difficult to take full advantage of even this rather docile B20. At anything over 70 mph, the steering starts to feel a bit light, and when I get it up to 80 there is a definite vagueness and a feeling of lack of control. (Changing camber, caster, and/or toe-in, seems to have little effect.) It feels like the front end wants to start to lift off. At that point the engine still has quite a bit more to give, but I, for one, wouldn't want to go there on a regular basis. I've pushed it up to 90 on an empty road, sort of hoping to find where I'd hit valve float, (which was a nice governor-like feature on the B16), but the thing just kept on revving, and I backed off. I've driven Amazons with B20s and never had that sensation at similar speeds, which I attribute to shape, weight, and a more sophisticated front-end.
I think it unlikely that a 210 would handle better than a 544 at the afore- mentioned speeds - probably worse. That is not to say that there is anything wrong with having the extra oomph available to show up the kids in their ricers and to get you out of scrapes and safely through tight passing situations, but a slab-sided 210 doing seventy-five, being overtaken by an eighteen-wheeler, is likely to be a white-knuckle event.
Personally, if I ever get lucky enough to find a 210 for a reasonable price, I would go for a B18 + M41 - maybe a B20, but only if I planned to pull a camper.
Best of luck,
Bob S.
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'62 PV544 (B20, M41), '71 142E, '93 240 Classic Wagon.
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