Ok fellas, here a simple yes no maybe so question. Can I get a 383 with 11:1 compression to run on pump gas (93octane) and iron heads with a Holley stealth ram and some spot on tuning. Another note, the cam has 234/242 duration. Any thoughts?

 

Yes. Polished chambers help in that regard.

 

It will run, but.......... You may need to retard the timing a little to avoid detonation. Around town it will probabily be ok for easy cruising, But for max performance at full throttle and full ignition timing it will probabily need about 100 octane.

Building the motor with minimum quench clearance, an efficient cooling system, modern high swirl/ fast burn combustion chambers
and tuning a little rich at full throttle will help.
Consider using a short runner- Mini ram intake (anti tuning) as opposed to a long(er) runner stealth ram.

I have a 12.6:1 compression small block with iron heads, flat tops, that seems to run fine on 94 octane Sunoco. It has very tight quench clearance, small polished chambers, and a huge cam with loads of overlap. And cool plugs. I actually have a dual fuel system in my car, one for street pump gas and another 1 gallon fuel cell/plumbing for 110 octane race fuel. But so far it seems to run amazingly well on the 94 octane pump gas.

If yours turns out to be problematic after all, water/ alcohol injection works wonders at quenching detonation, pinging and spark knock on supercharged as well as high compression N/A motors.

If all this is way to involved, build for a true 10:1. You'll make lots of no hassle power.

 

Cooler heads will prevail...

 

I'm not sure what you mean by that but I'm planning on running a 160 stat and was thinking about looking into the cooler plugs that were mentioned. As far as the assemble specs, everthing is just about in stone. The heads are here and I really don't wanna have to send them back to exchange for 72cc heads. Also, I've got a set off 1003 felpro head gaskets that I was planning on using with a compressed thickness of .041 and a bore of 4.166. Anyone know of any gaskets that are a little thicker? Thanks again guys.

Tom