compression to low or no? mill heads or no?
 

I am getting ready to fire up my new motor & will have some dyno results in that will follow,but ,this is a street car that won't see a lot of track time ,maybe twice a month,allthough there is a lot of street racin going on here,I am concerned about the new motor that was built for me by erik koeing,not that it won't hold up but let me give u guys a run down on what I'm dealing with here;Callies crank. Callies rods,weisco -32cc pistons & an ironblock 403 ci, I am running. A novi 2k ,16 lbs of boost with juilos alky. Kit & andys fuel system,thru a chuck johnson built tranny & a pye 3400 converter,3.73 gears, patriot 64 cc heads,this brings the static compression to 8.8 to1, I talked to erik about it & he's telling me to mill the heads .030 to .35 & raise it up to 9,3 to1,the cam in the car is on a 117 +4 deg advanced in it,234/254 ,little over 605 on the lift,so do u think milling the heads would hurt the integrity of the head ,or drive it like it is & later on change the pistons out? It would be easiest to shave the heads ,I just don't wanna run into lifting heads everytime I step my foot in the gas,so maybe someone else can chime in ,let me hear what u would do?btw ,the heads have never been milled,only trued up, the bottom end is arp main caps, arp2000 rod bolts, mains & cam bearings have been coated,what I am. Thinking is the cam & the converter is really gonna help me on the low end

I would not mill the heads. If you do that is going to make the decks pretty thin and greatly increase the risk of lifting the heads. 8.8:1 is not terribly bad. The gear will help out on the low end. The cam is going to shine in the upper RPM range. I have a 236/245/595/608/115 in my 402 and it does not start to kick in until about 3600ish RPMs and really starts to pull about 5400 RPMs. If you really want to raise your compression I would get a set of 5.3L heads to do that. That will keep the deck thickness the same and help out since you are running 16 psi of boost.

When calculating your static compression, are you taking into account how far the piston comes out of the hole? Regardless, I'd leave it.

Also, I'm not feeling that cam.

Erik Koenig built the motor and gave him the specs.
I'm with you guys. I would leave it alone and up the boost another 5 psi. :D

Well 1 thing about it bret, we can add a boatload of timing to it, I also sm intrested in the 5.3 head,this will raise it to. 9.3 to1 ,as far as the cam cobra killer ,erik chose that paticular grind for the 403,so I trust his judgement on his cam selection ,after all he is 1 of the top engine builders on this board,hey bret , I'm gonna have to come out to dallas soon,we can get the flipdrive ordered & possibly put on a new set of heads :D oya. I'm really digging the cam!!