Originally Posted by
Scoff
Whatever spacer plate you make should incorporate the squish area too. IE not round holes.
I'm not a fan of cutting out the quench areas, I always had best results with that left in and better still with a 1mm gasket to really bring the squish up. Compression should be standard or slightly raised, they're horrible when CR is low. I don't know why anyone would want low CR. You need a lot of timing to get any real output and to keep EGT in order. It kills off-boost response and ecconomy.
Lots of guys with other engines use alloy spacers and just a thin layer of sealent to bond it to the head, not too dissimilar to a copper gasket. I'm not sure how well stainless will work ? I guess fine enough if it and the head are very flat and smooth. The worst that will happen is pressurisation of coolant or water / oil mixing.
My last and best C1J ran 8.3:1, some ignition retard and about 27psi I think. I used a 1.4 NA gasket (1mm) to improve squish and bring the CR up. I can't remember if pistons were flat top, I think they were. That could do 116mph in the 1/4m, so maybe about 260hp. I found that more CR was better than more timing. And more squish was better than less squish.