I went with the edelbrock parts since they were all smog legal. I have a 79 c20 pickup and I had built a 383 for it. I added the heads, cam, and intake when the 350 was built into a 383. It ran pretty darn good, but now I am running a 406 with the same top end parts (after extensive porting work).
The elelbrock intake and heads didn't flow worth a crap. Some of the higher end non-smog parts have better numbers. I had a ton of porting work done on mine. The heads sucked around the intake valves. The intake valves were increased in size just so that the area around them could be cleaned up properly (they were big enough but the head was shaped wrong). The intake flowed stock numbers on half the runners and good, performance oriented, numbers on the other half. Now the heads and intake flow as well as some of the best non-smog parts. There are better heads out there, but they didn't have carb EO numbers and they have very big price tags on them.
The guy that did my top end said the vortec heads are almost identical to the edelbrock heads that I had modified. Vortecs would have needed a little less work. They also are not aluminum, so compression can't be run quite as high without detonation, but the spark plug is in a better position than the elelbrocks.
For your 350, you may do just fine with all edelbrock parts. In my case we added 56 cubic inches to the 350 that the parts could have gone on, and the bottom end was built to careful specs to get as much torque as possible out of a small block (that could still pass smog).
Making power out of an engine is a package deal. It is only as good as the weakest/most restrictive part. A 79 350 should be 8.5:1 compression. I doubt they had flat top pistons and some people say the heads didn't flow well. A good cam, intake, and carb along with your headers, will help but the heads and bottom end will hold you back some. If your engine is sound, doing the performer cam isn't a bad place to start.
I also run the performer AFB style carb. It is simple and reliable. It is a bit small for max performance in my 406 but it still hauls ass with it. For a 350 it is probably sized just right at 600cm. My 406 should use 660 cfm or so at 5500rpm, but most carbs don't flow as much as they are rated for. I had a q jet rated at 795 cfm on the 383, then switched to the performer carb. I gained fuel mileage and didn't loose any seat of the pants power. Some people say that holley's make more power, but I don't know if they are smog legal or as easy to adjust and run.
On my 406 we went 10:1 compression, flat top pistons, scat crank and rods, and the upgraded edelbrock heads. The parts (valves, complete intake manifold, and possibly part of the heads) also have a thermal barrier coating sprayed and baked on them to help with heat transfer. The squish quench was set to around .035" to get the most out of the combustion chamber. The pistons stick out of the hole 0.005". The head/intake guy can reach 100% or better volumetric efficiency. Most engines are closer to 90% in stock form. There is a lot that goes into making an engine efficient. I used the impersonator 406 article as a guide for mine-they made 525tq at 3500rpm.
The performer cam should be good for your truck. It worked well in my 383, but acted smaller due to the extra cubic inches. It is still probably quite a step up for duration. I know it has more duration than my stock 88 K5 350 (165/175 at 50). My 406 is running 224/224 at 50 and is advertised as a comp cams 270h magnum. Bigger would have given more HP but the peak torque would have moved up in rpm and I wouldn't be safe for smog. In the Impersonator II article, they went with a bigger cam than I did and some really good aluminum heads. They added 80hp but only 5 more ft lbs of torque. We already pushed it as far as we could. This July I will find out if we went too far.
Good luck
