OK, now we need to check the deck height on the 4 corners of the block. I used a Sterrett depth guage that is made just for doing these types of things, you may have improvise or buy a guage for this. I found my deck heights to be at .026, .026, .027, and .031. I istructed the machine shop to cut the block .026 so that should put all 4 pistons at deck height, Im betting that the .031 is due to core shift and once the decking squares the block we will be setting even with a zero deck height. Doing this will allow us a good and proper quench as the piston comes to top dead center, this will reduce the chances of pre-ignition/detonation.

Also I polished the chambers on the heads and radiused all edges of the chambers, this will further help reduce the dreaded detonation. My assemble with this 3.75" stroke and 4.030 bore will be 8.77:1 with the Keith Black pistons and the Fel-Pro gaskets.

Dont forget to write all of this down and give a copy of it to your machine shop when you return the block and all for final work including decking, ballancing, freeze plugs.....the rest of the cam bearings...etc..etc...