[GB SISSON]

As if I needed more drama, I will present something that hasn't been brought up yet. In post 246 I mentioned that all this measuring and clearancing to get to a 40+ state was performed with a used head gasket that measures .062. I also stated that the Best Gasket website gives a compressed gasket thickness of .052. Somewhere I lost track of that other .010". Yikes, I'm back into carving out the combustion chambers again. Last night I went down and decided to see what kind of numbers I got on a typical cylinder with the new standard head gasket from my Best set, which outa the box is .058. I was sick of all the math required, and the chance that a piston hit the fire ring and alter my numbers, so went up to the woodshop and ripped some hard Eastern maple strips at EXACTLY .052. I made extra so I could pick five pieces about 8" long. Placed them vertically at each end and the center, the the two others I carved a scoop to fit between the pistons. These I used a dot of contact cement to prevent wandering. Did some balls and results were predictable. Need more carving.
I feel my carving skills were quite good and improved with practice, using the worn small grinding disc which I'm gonna say is about 3 1/2" or so. This disc has the typical worn out convex lense shape that occurs naturally from general use. Not pictured yet, but I later followed this up with a flap sanding disc of similar size and wear. The majority of carving to this point has been from zero to .010, and now I will need to remove another .010 in places. My gut feeling is this is ok. The chambers were virgin at the start.
My game plan moving forward is to wait til the big bore gaskets arrive from Olson's Gaskets and using a NEW sharper sharpie, outline the larger size on the head and dive in. I will continue to utilize the wood strip spacers for the remaining steps as it is so direct. And yes, I tested them after last night's experiment and the maple shows absolutely zero compression from six snug headbolts. Somebody should market a .052" thick aluminum 'head gasket'. Everything I searched just said 'use an old head gasket', so I did.