Have you considered the fuel you will use?
Are you interested in perhaps using propane?
Then you can throw serious compression at it.
And a fun bonus will be the tree huggers who will compliment you on your vintage truck with clean propane...heh heh... not knowing you have 450hp.
To all of your responses, in order lol.
1. Tread lightly
, my baby is an '83 Ranger, and that truck is my heart and soul. All manufacturers make good vehicles. All manufacturers make bad ones. All of them have great fans. All of them have idiots.
2. I think the point he was making was that even with low compression, they would still make a noticeable difference. But of course, the best option would be picking up some pistons that will take advantage of the heads/mods.
3. ~$150 was just the first set I had noticed, and had mistakenly assumed that was the price of one piston. After a couple of searches, I will actually be looking in the ~$250 dollar area.
4. I do not have a machinist as that's money I don't have, and I'm doing this build all on my lonesome. As for resurfacing the engine, there's no need. It had been rebuilt less that 5k miles before it was parked. It was parked because it was smoking like a chimney. The cause was not a failure, but rather the meth heads who built it (Not a joke, they were legit meth heads) installed the piston rings without offsetting the gaps. In fact, the gaps were lined up perfectly hence the black hole of a piston pictured above. Also, while I'm just your average guy, the engine was looked over by professionals and deemed to be in outstanding condition, albeit a bit dirty. As for throwing the pistons out, I won't until the new pistons (if I find some) are installed. Even then, I'll likely clean them up and sell them. And lastly, as for valve size, it's one of the things I intend to ask Lunati about and see what they recommend along with the rest of the valve train, in order to best take advantage of their cam I'll be using. There's every chance they might tell me stock size is fine, as this build is going be very mild in nature and going bigger may not be justified. Other than swapping out parts, I have no intention or need really to machine, port, or in any way alter the block/heads. Just swapping better parts in
5. That's simply not practical in my case. This build is going to be my new daily, operated every day living a life split between work, play, and pleasure. In addition, here in Montana we face extreme temperature fluctuations, often times over 60 degrees in one day, easily. On average the summers are 90 degrees or more, and the winter sees -20 regularly, and often much much colder. Especially up in the mountains, where this thing may very well end up due to it also being a plow truck in the winter. Given all of these factors, gas is the most logical fuel, and I have no intention or interest in going with anything else. And to your final point, I'm not concerned with trying to make a lot of power, just a reliable, strong workhorse.
Phew, that was a lot
Thanks though, you had a lot of interesting points, and things that made me think. Especially going with an alternative fuel. Even though I won't, its fun to wonder, ya know? And the general consensus seems to be pick up some better pistons, and give the valve train some thought and care, which I will definitely be doing.