"Flat Tops" means NOTHING until you start specifying compression distance. It's REALLY easy to get pistons that sit too low in the cylinder, and then require excess milling of the block decks to get the quench distance right.

Quench at .045 is at the very top of the acceptable range. "I" would look at .035 to .040 depending on piston rock. Engine I'm building now is zero-decked or very close, and a .039 gasket pair. I probably should have left the piston .005--.010 in the hole (less material cut from the deck) and used .029 gaskets.

 

 

.025 in the hole, plus a typical .040 gasket = no quench.

 

The stock TBs and Crossfire intake will be restrictions. I would go with an aftermarket Renegade intake. You need to have the stock TBs bored out, but I don't know anyone that does it anymore. After that, its all about fuel delivery and getting enough fuel into the engine. At a minimum, you need to upgrade to Vette injectors and will likely need to bump fuel pressure up as well.

I'm close to maxing out the fuel system with nothing near as radical as you have. See build specs below.

 

Forgot to mention, fuel pressure currently set at 18 PSI. I've heard you can go as high as the mid 20s, but I don't need that much with what I currently have.

 

http://maxbore.com/

 

It's amazing how time changes things. This was the original "idea" for my current build. Granted the idea was the same, the parts combination changed a lot. My cousin (Brian) put out the feeler for it as I did with a few friends in the business more just to see if I was even picking decent parts more so than if it would work I guess.

Anyway, I left the short block alone, pistons CC at roughly 6... It is difficult to CC a piston in a block, I did some math with playdough and got a pretty consistent result though... Pistons measured about .02 in the hole and I went with a thin... .02 head gasket if memory serves... Had all the math written down at some point but I get the compression at about 10.1:1 using the volume I measured in the head's chamber. Cam ended up in the 226/231 range with a .509/.517 valve lift. Straight dual 3 inch exhaust with a single X to 2.25 right at the tips... not ideal but it does work fine... sounds fantastic though.

I have a renegade but due to core shift it doesn't seal the lifter valley and pulls vacuum from the crankcase and does all sorts of weird things... I have a set of 2inch throttle bodies sitting on the bench I purchased for the cost of a single max bore plus shipping so that was cool. And I now have a few spares to play around with too. I have a ported to all hell stock intake that was worked on with a flow bench that flows pretty damn well for what the current mill will need and eventually I will try and hack the renegade together for the next one. It flows pretty close to the renegade. It will not make the same power for sure but it should be nice for a mild 350.

So the car runs great, drives as good as stock, sounds amazing, and even with the stock intake manifold pulls to 6200... stops making power around 4000 rpms though. (was hoping to get a new renegade so the stock untouched one went on temporarily for the last 2 years...) Figured a conclusion to the original question was due. It is fun.