I doubt that anyone would be offended here. I'm not. It is obvious that you are not a novice at this but it appears that something out of the ordinary is occurring and we are just adding wine and beer to the festival. None of it will go to waste even though there was already plenty on hand.
It is only speculation on my part that if the cam was mis-ground to another firing order that it would be more likely that it would be to something similar in the same family like another Ford, rather then say a BMW.
Could it be as simple as the cam dowl being installed 180° wrong? That would really be far fetched?
I'm not sure if Occam's Razor applies here?
Incidentally, the reason that Ford changed the 289 to the 351 firing order was really a strange one in that very late in the 289-302's history the engine began to experience crankshaft failures. Failures in that the crankshaft would break in two.
There experimentally, their solution would be to change the crankshaft loading by changing the firing order without attempting to "redesign the wheel", so to speak. So even if this is the cause of the trouble here, and the engine runs on the 289 firing order, it would not be advisable to run it extensively with that.
Additionally, even if this is the issue, I would expect Bullet Cams to react to this with something like "YOU are full of 'do-do", WE don't make mistakes like that. It must be YOU who is mistaken", and why not? To admit a mistake like that to me would make them "totally disqualified".
Long shots do come in. I have never bet on them before the fact, only acknowledged them too late!