i'm trying to balance out my compression on each side. one heads chambers measure 63cc and other is 61.5. would it be find to use different gaskets on each side. it would take a .030 on one side and .036 on other to balance compression? would be 13.29/13.33 like this.

Picking the fly poop out of the pepper. You need to lose 1.5 cc's or gain 1.5 cc's.

Can't you make one head smaller by milling or one head bigger by a little chamber massaging?

If at all possible I'd mill the bigger head a touch

Now that I think about it, you could put the smaller head on the even bank and let it go. It won't even know it.

I had engines that ran very well come into the shop with 2 different heads on them. this was an issue in the late 90's early 00's with Canfields from jegs. The order puller would pick the heads up and not check the boxes. guys would bolt them on and run them.

We obviously fixed them, but when you tell someone their heads don't match they think something is up. But I have seen the mistake many times.

If its just the chambers and not the height of
the head I'd let it fly.. all you would be doing
by cutting it or different gaskets is messing up
the push rod lengths.. just make sure its just in
the chambers.. if you REALLY want it balanced then
touch up the chambers on the one head

OK but just picked these up from the shop ready to bolt on. Compression would about .3 difference and I thought easy fix would be different gasket each side would balance nicely. Push rods could be same length just another 1/2 to one turn on the adjuster one side I would think. The cosmetics are sold in singles, would this be the reason ?

Take them back to who did the heads.. have them
open up the one head(chambers).. I guess that
place doesnt measure the chambers when they do heads

after seeing how far off my heads were and spending a bunch of money to fix them and not seeing one bit of difference in performance i'm not so sure I would worry about it, and mine were 7 cc's different from big to little and ended up being one compression point different high to low.

Indy cylinder head started this ball Rollin when they cast them. Iv had them 10+ yes and been like this from day one. Not putting any more money in these as I have over $4500 in them now. I'll just bolt them on and forget about it. Thanks

ordered cometics today. talked to Bob@FBO about using different size head gasket per side and he tells me he has done that very same thing 20+ times on engines he has built over the yrs. didn't think it was an issue. so I ordered .030 and .036 gaskets. we are only talking .006" difference per side. $155/pair til first on yr.

I've done it before, but we did before and after dyno pulls. We found a big fat zero. We did put the big chambers on the #2 side. I was actually thinking of swapping the heads from side to side to dyno but said screw it. IIRC it was about 650 HP and it was a Dorf (Ford spelled kinda backwards...like drof but I like Dorf better).

FWIW I enjoy picking the pepper out of the fly poop as long as I'm not paying for it.

My cylinder head guy told the same. Not gonna matter much performance wise. Just my own piece of mind compression is same in all cylinders. Quench will be .035 on pass side and .041 on Dr. Only difference.

what about in my case where the machine shop took 16 thou too much off the passenger side when they were asked to zero deck the block? everything else checks out fine but my flat tops are 16 thou out of the hole on the one side.

I would say they owe you a new block, I would be pizzed.

I would be very upset with that. Thicker cosmetic might be a fix as well. Only other thing to do would be to have other side decked to match.

Cut the block so both sides are the same. Use thicker gaskets or put the pistons in a piston vise and machine .016 off the top. Since it's a FT you could do it in a lathe too.

I'm building a bracket motor now that has .014 differences between the deck hieghts on both sides, .6 CC varience in the 8 combustion chambers and .004 differnences in the eight deck hieghts I'm putting a .051 thick head gasket on the +.010 deck hieght side and a .040 on the -.004 deck hieght side, I'm seeing right at .12 compression ratio differences in between all eight chambers and pistons set up that way Years ago I had 6.5 CC removed on my old 415 HP M.W NHRA stocker heads from one weekend to the next to make it right at the max allowed compression ratio and saw no measureable differences in ET or MPH I probally had other issues with that combination at that time also so maybe there is some gains to be had by absolute blueprinting to the Nth degree
I hope to make at least on perfect motor in my life time, at least Just one