When you swap head gaskets I'd take a few CC's out of the combustion chambers also. I think you can come out of this alright

I almost had the heads hogged out in 2006 when I installed those Cometic .060 head gaskets. The man I spoke with wanted $1000 to port the heads and remove 4 ccs from each chamber. It seemed like a lot back then, but now it seems somewhat reasonable.

I just ordered the Mallory spring kit from Summit. Dodgem posted the link a few posts ago. For $35, its worth a try.
Rick Ehrenberg from Mopar Action likes the use of a two stage timing curve. The instructions on the Mallory packaging show how to achieve this.
Maybe by Wednesday I'll be able to work on the spare distributor and get it in the car. I'll have to drive the car around to use up the high octane gas I have in it now. At 6-7 mpg, that shouldn't take too long!

Yea think your on the right track get a nice idle advance but slow it down to total maybe all in by 3500?? Give or take.

I still wonder about intake gasket glowing??

Good luck

You may even want to slow it down to have the total in at 3000 or 3500 ??

I thought so too. I'd need to look for stiffer springs than what came in the Mallory kit.
If anyone knows any tricks for tuning distributors, I'm willing to learn!

I'm still looking at different head gaskets to lower the CR.
The Cometic .075 ones lower the CR to 9.89. That would buy me a lot of octane forgiveness, but I wonder if I need to go that low. They are pricey...$143 each.
These are from Flatout:

http://www.summitracing.com/parts/fog-900464520

They have a 4.520 bore and a .064 thickness. They would lower the CR to 10.11. They are also $176 for a pair.

The .060 Cometics I used in 2006 lowered the CR to 10.29. The engine didn't ping with those, and that was with the distributor that had the fast advance curve.

The Flatout .064 gaskets are tempting. the 10.11 CR looks like it would get me a little wiggle room in case I got a mediocre batch of gas or if the weather was really hot.

Does this thing rattle no matter whose gas is in it? It is not unheard of that regular gets dumped in the premium tank either by accident or design. If you always gas up at the same place, go somewhere else preferably a brand name station.

Make sure it isn't still sucking oil thru the intake. I would hold off on the thick gaskets because the loss of quench will likely hurt more than help. We're missing something here because there are lots of guys here running similar combos without having to resort to race gas.

Kevin

In summary, the 10.7 CR detonated on 91 octane when I had the MP 292/509 cam. I changed to 1.6 rocker arms, bumping the lift to .543 and while it ran a bit smoother, it still knocked. I added 110 Sunoco to a half tank of 91 and the knocking stopped. All along I have wanted to be able to run this engine on 91 octane or less. I asked questions here and elsewhere about what options there are to get there. I took the advice of a guy on another site on the Lunati solid cam I have in the car now. Well, that cam looked great on paper but somehow made things worse. I can still get it to stop knocking with 110 fuel, but that still leaves me miles away from the original goal.
I have tried UPjetting and DOWNjetting the carburetor.
I have tried another carburetor.
I have tried timing adjustments, different distributors, colder spark plugs, new wires, early day (For cooler weather) and the car still knocks at WOT with anything less than the current mix of 110 and 95 octane fuel. I did change the advance springs in the distributor, but all that did was delay the advance by about 400 rpms. Thats not enough to help.
I do not know if the block decks are square. That is an interesting point. I suppose that it is possible to have one or more pistons sitting higher or lower than #1 at TDC. I do know that with #1 piston .017 in the hole and with the .039 head gasket, I am at .056 for quench. I've asked it before and most people seem to think that at that distance, the beneficial effects of quench are minimal if any. It is because of this that I have considered using the thicker head gaskets again.
Regarding the possibility of getting a bad batch of gas or gas labled as 91 that is really 87: I thought of that, but the car has been pretty consistant. I live in Northern CA and have driven the car to LA and back 3 times. I have been dealing with this same problem for years. It is just this year that I have had some $$$ to spend to fix it.

The valley pan has been clean and dry since I replaced it a few weeks back. Looking back at my notes, I found that when replacing the valley pan in the past, I have alternated between using the tin alone as well as using the paper gaskets. I'm embarrassed to admit though that I had the intake manifold torque spec way off. I was only cranking it to just past 12 lbs because I incorrectly thought I read that in the Edelbrock instructions.
This engine has no blowby. The cranking compression numbers are within 4% from highest to lowest. It got closer when I put in the adjustable rockers, probably because the stock type rockers were inaccurate.

Fact: You want it to run strong on 91 (fast curve). You have little/no quench. (1) pick the cam YOU want (2) Pick a head gasket(s) that will get the SCR down to where the DCR will not ping on 91 & let you run a fast curve. (3) dial in the dist. Taking some CC's out of the heads will let you not have to go so thick on the gaskets as either way you will have to deal with thicker intake gaskets likely required to make everything line up. Just me if the pistons are high enough to where I could get quench with the right thin gasket I'd mill some reliefs in the piston decks & the heads to lower the SCR then rebalance the crank or possibly heavier pins to make up for what you took off the pistons & as said you can take a "significant" amount off of the pistons before rebalancing is required especially with them being aluminum. If the piston deck is .150" or thicker you are OK. IMNHO no way is quench by itself going to take care of the SCR being that high with crap gas plus you dont have the cam you'd like. I dont think you want to go back into the shortblock so dont take my ramblings in the 2nd half of this serious

Tighten the intake valve lash .01-.015" and see if it helps. I'm not going to go back through all this but from the start I can see the problem and this is a crutch.

tightening the intake vl will close the intake much later and give a clue as to the chance he might get away with a poor combo. Simple stuff.

Im probably all wrong about this, but wouldnt a bigger camshaft make more cylinder pressuer at a higher RPM compaired to a smaller camshaft? I have thought about your build and read all the posts over and over. I am having a similar problem with my standard bore, standard stroke 440. I have 452 heads milled around .100 to make them closed chamberd. I have no quench. Im running a Comp 284XE cam with 1.6 rockers. I just hooked up the wide band and its rich except WOT. I think I need larger jets in the secondarys and a smaller number on the power valve. Anywhay, Not trying to hyjack your thread, but would the more duration, higher lift cam make more cylinder pressure at a higher RPM? If not how does it make more HP? It holds the valves open longer to let MORE air in... at a low RPM it bleeds it off...