340 Piston to valve clearance w/RHS heads

Mad Dart...good to know. I'll have to price out what aftermarket rods would be vs re-sizing the stock rods+arp's.

I do wear shorts+t-shirt in the summer and use the handy dandy vent doors, but if you get into any traffic, it gets blazing hot in there....as the headers are right under your right leg, I have black interior, and the small windows. It tests out the deoderant, that's for sure.

I run T/A style mufflers with the same end inlet & outlet in 2.5"...they are Dynomax Super Turbos. They're actually pretty quiet until you get over 2500rpm. I wouldn't change it for the world as the sound is great. If I had A/C I could run with the windows up and it would be plenty quiet even at 3000rpm.

There are lots of 340's out there with the L2316F's...and stock crank and rods...I'm not too worried about overstressing. I'd like to stay away from hyper pistons because if you have any type of serious detonation, or lets say you drop a valve, etc...you get this: http://www.hotrod.com/techarticles/engine/hrdp_0604_ford_302_engine_parts_failure/photo_09.html

And then the block, heads, etc are junk. Get why some people call them hyperexplosive pistons? If for whatever reason the Speed Pro/TRW forged ones are not available, I'll probably call Diamond and get some custom forged pistons. Oh yeah, and I kept forgetting to say that the extra piston rock goes away when the engine is fully warmed up as the pistons have expanded to take up that extra clearance.