70 cuda 4 speed 3.54 gear 440 6 pack Mopar 484 cam, Hooker Super Comp headers. I feel the combo I have now is not very detonation tolerant, I have fattened the mixture and run colder plugs and can still not make it take more than 28 degrees total without the plugs looking like porcupines. Currently has 452 heads with KB 237 Silvolite pistons. With the 88 cc chambers and the piston .010 in the hole and a 5 cc valve relief, this gives me 9.7 CR.
I am considering using the Source 440 aluminum heads with a closed 80 cc chamber. If I swithched the heads only, my qeunch would be about .050 ( gasket + .010)much better than what I had with the 452"s (is .150 even considered quench??) but boosts CR to about 10.5 which even with the aluminum heads I feel I may be back in the same situation. I have heard aluminimun heads are worth a point in compression but even if thats true my true effective CR would be 9.5, not much less than 9.7.
KB makes a forged piston with a 12cc dish which would give me 9.6 CR with the 80 cc chambers and I couldalways cheat with a gasket .010 or so if I wanted, or I coud get the heads milled a bit to get it up some. Not looking to build a drag engine or something for max power, just looking for a nice running engine that I don't have to worry about detonation. Any thoughts. I realize I am looking at about 2k to do this I just can't endure the clatter and the consequences anymore, who knows, I may be able to lean it out a bit and/or run a hotter plug to keep things cleaner. BTW jetting is "stage 2 as per moparts forum guy (very helpful) not sure what the plug is but reccomendation came from the same source as the jetting. SO what do you think??