One of the things that has bugged me since I built the current engine in my car is that the piston deck height is bad (.0205" in the hole) and the compression is low for aluminum heads (9.9:1).

Right now I have a 440 bored .030" over with TRW six pak pistons, stock rods, stock forged crank, MP 509 hydraulic cam, and 84cc out of the box Eddy heads.

The limiting factor in doing anything more has been my piston to valve clearance because the valve reliefs in the pistons are for stock size valves. Right now I have .120" clearance on the intake and .174" on the exhaust with a .027" cometic head gasket.

My winter project idea is to pull the engine and then pull the pistons to have the valve reliefs enlarged. Then make sure everything is still balanced. Once that is done I can have the heads milled to get my compression up to around 11:1 which would still be ok on pump premium...right? While the heads are off I would also have a guy I know gasket match them and do a little minor porting.

The question is do you think all of this would be a waste of time or would I see some noticeable gains in ET by bumping up the compression and a little head work?