I'd be tempted to stick with the LS6 heads. The chamber design with the double quench area should actually help prevent detonation and promote a better burn. You won't gain much power going from a 9.4 to 9.7 CR.

If those heads have a large chamber, you might look into another head that has the same general chamber design with less volume.

I agree with you on going with a little smaller cam, but I'd choose something in the mid-upper 220 duration range.

 

FWIW Im going with a 222/218 114 for my setup, which is what Richard recommended and and what Jones said to go with pretty much since I want TONS of low end power right off idle and work great with a 2600(stock 80e) converter.

Jones can cut your cam for 100 bucks to a much smaller one if you want to go that route, food for thought.

 

I'm not sure that the quench design makes much difference in my case. My pistons are not quench pistons. They have a huge dish (28cc) with a raised center bore. Here, you can see them in this pic...I may be wrong though...we're getting into things that are beyond my current knowledge.

 

I'll keep that in mind, might be worth looking into.

 

Quench pads are the part of the head where the head presses down on the head gasket in turn pressing the gasket to the block and sealing the cylinders better. Quick and dirty explanation. The more/bigger quench pad(s) the better chance of not blowing a head gasket on high boost.

 

Chris -- remember to adjust your DCR for your boost before you go to far down this road. I'm not 100% sure on this, but was told that calculating DCR on a boost engine is accomplished by multiplying the PR * NA DCR (where PR = (14.7 - boost / 14.7).

 

huh i can't explain it well but thats not what the quench pads are for.

 

Well maybe it was explained ot me wrong so please try, Im up for learning something new.

 

 

So how does having that small area in teh combustion chamber that doesnt touch the gasket help with sealing the combustion chamber?