look no hands

Looks good.

Best of luck with the build.

I believe Duster Doug is correct about the pistons being so far down in the hole. The reason for this is Mopar was forced to drop the compression on all motors pretty severely beginning in '72, the same year they introduced the 400. A couple of reasons caused this, increasing emissions standards, decreasing octane ratings produced by oil companies lead to lowering of compression ratios. The simplest way to drop the compression was to simply install a shorter piston. Dishing the piston, or changing the compression chamber would be more difficult/expensive.

One reason early smog motors were such dogs is that not only did they lower the compression ratios they ruined any quench for the piston. Flame travel was severely compromised in these motors. This poor combustion chamber design also lead to motors that were more prone to detonation. Compression ratios were dropped in many cases to 8:1, yet would still detonate under some circumstances. Modern engines with aluminium heads, with well designed combustion chambers, and ports that provide well atomized fuel distribution frequently boast 10.5:1 compression while running on 87 or 91 octane fuel.

Regards,

Joe Dokes