The V8 Owners Forum -

Hi,

Got a drunken ebay bid on a 4.6 crank, 4.0 litre rods and new set of Manley forged flat top pistons. Thought they would make a good basis for a performance build. However with early 36cc heads, that combo with composite gaskets is going to give me a static compression in excess of 13:1. I know I can bleed some compression off with a fairly wild cam, but would rather get it down to the region of around 12:1.

What is the absolute maximum that the combustion chambers could be taken out to. Alternatively, ehat are the chamber volumes of the new heads on the market: Merlins, TA heads, Wildcats. I know Buick 300 heads are 54cc, but I imagine they are rocking horse poop.

300 heads do come up from time to time on the US Buick and BritishV8 forums. There's also specialists like D&D, Wedge Shop, The Buick Farm and others that may have them. There's a pair of cast iron (non 1964) Buick 300 heads advertised on Ebay right now.

Wont 4.0 rods with a 4.6 crank push the piston tops higher than the block deck?

Garry

garrycol wrote:Wont 4.0 rods with a 4.6 crank push the piston tops higher than the block deck?

Garry

Yeah but the pistons had a lower gudgeon pin-to-piston crown height.

I actually had a hand in working this stuff out for the chap that was selling the stuff, from memory the pistons ended up just a few thou down the bores at TDC. The very high CR was down to the fact that the pistons had no dish in them at all. We umm'd and arrr'd over what to do about this, the 300 heads being a good solution but in the end selling the stuff was easier! (Other projects were getting in the way anyway).