i'm looking to rebuild my 71 383 over the winter months and am looking for some advice. i'd like a respectable street performer engine. i want to be able to get in a drive anywhere. the car has a 727 and a 3.55 rear gear. so, obviously i will be do an overbore and ring job, some new pistons, shooting for 10:1 compression and i want to run pump gas. i want to retain the stock look to the engine so i'm using cast iron manifolds, cast iron heads, cast iron intake. and either a 650 double pumper carb or a 750 vaccuum secondary carb.

now the real question is what to do with the heads. how critical is it to run a closed chamber these days, should i look for a 915 head? i am going to port and polish the heads and i'm thinking i may put the larger valves in. (stroker engine is not out of the question) also i'm thinking of running a solid cam maybe the mopar 528, i've had good luck with it in the past. so any comments, ideas, suggestions, etc, are all welcome.

If you run closed chambered make sure to zero deck and use either kb162 or speedpro 2315 pistons and steel shim head gaskets and you will have 9.1 or 9.5 comp but if you use open chambers i am gonna run kb400 pistons which have dome but i aint zero decked but should have around 9.5 comp!

if i run open chamber heads which is what is on the car now, didn't kb make quench dome pistons at one time? i believe these had to be sized to the quench pad on the head to ensure they were matched?