I would advise not using thicker head gaskets to lower compression for most engines of this design (I'm no wise pontiac sage so I defer to those that are). As I understand, doing so reduces the quench area and if a thick enough gasket is used, this will result in a worse problem than before (counter intuitive but I've experienced this ). Sufficient quench is required for good combustion and creates turbulence which basically causes a swirl and cools hot spots which is a good thing.
Cutting/milling piston tops while also lowering static compression, creates a similar situation and I too have experienced this!
So, I plan on obtaining static compression and going from there. There are calculators out there that estimate dynamic compression and so I'm gonna plug in cam intake time to get me to about 170 based on recent reading/research.
Thanks for the input/comments!
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Fred Chavez
68 vert, 293, t400, ps/pb, ac
