360 Pistons

30cc, but...how far down in the hole are they dave? 4" bore, .1" down in the hole is 20.6cc. you need to subtract that volume, and probably another 1 cc or so for the crevice volume (beween the piston and the wall above the top ring land) from dave's measurement to get the dish volume.

The "Magnum Manifesto" article from Hot Rod magazine
and various years of the Mopar Performance catalog list a deck height for the Magnum 5.9 V8 as
9.585
and the Magnum V8 MLS design head gasket compressed thickness as
0.0475

It seems to make sense
considering the old LA V8
deck height spec of
9.599
and later head gaskets of
0.033

When they decided to increase the head gasket to MLS type thickness they milled down the block to compensate?

Blueprint spec for a
Magnum 5.9 V8
might be

09.585
-6.123
-1.622
-1.790
--------
00.050 in hole
+0.0475 gasket thickness
--------
00.0975 quench clearance

Why so bad when 0.026 to 0.060 quench is widely declared to be is what is desired?

The Honda V-Tec factory quench clearance is supposed to be 0.75 mm (0.0295 inches)

Quench clearance on the Magnum 5.9 V8 might be that high and "bad"
in order to reduce unburnt hydrocarbons and carbon monoxide levels during the 'cold start' part of the EPA test.

Chrysler may have had to reluctantly increase the quench clearance until the cold start test could be passed.

We know that they had problems with the cold start HC and CO on the 1994 Magnum 5.2 V8 because they reduced the internal size of the exhaust manifolds and Y pipes to keep the exhaust gas from cooling so much as it expanded as it left the exhaust port. This cooler exhaust gas was failing to heat the catalytic converter up fast enough during cold start. You may have heard about the 5 hp penalty from these smaller exhaust manifold passages compare to the 1992-1993 original design.

When quench pads are working 'right' it does cool down and even snuff out a considerable percentage of the last fraction of the air and fuel mixture to burn, and this effect is greatest when the metal walls are dead cold

If anyone has typical factory 'variances' on
block deck heights,
connecting rods,
strokes of crankshafts,
please post them.

In the past crank grinders have posted that the Chrysler crankshaft tolerances were loose, both on stroke length and proper angle

I have pulled TONS of heads off magnum motors and never seen anything but a graphite type head gasket and NEVER a MLS.

As for the lousy quench thing I think it was because they were too lazy to step up the machining quality where they could consistantly run it real tight.

MLS gaskets are made for iron/AL head motor combos that have different thermal expansion coefficients, MLS allows the AL head to slide when it expands, that is why the RA of the head needs to be like 16, very smooth so the gasket doesnt hang up. My pre magnum 360 (last year for 360) had the slugs in the hole .090 and the dish was 8cc.

Well, what would you call the 1992 design of the thicker factory Magnum head gasket
... composite or impregnated fiber, maybe?

It certainly is not old style metal shim.

http://www.dupontelastomers.com/Applications/Automotive/head.asp

I don't know what they are called but they are really flakey stuff like soft flexible graphite stuff with a one layer perforated steel core.