Captainkirk's Duster project

The winds of change blow hard, they say, when they blow.
I tend to agree.
Paid a visit to Tony (my engine guy) today. I told him we had to put this thing to bed. Even though The Duke is a long way from being 'engine ready', we see what happens when the ravages of time get a hold on your parts. I want the shortblock, at least, assembled and bagged. Preferably the whole motor.
So, as you well know (those of you following this thread) what I would have PREFERRED to do was build the same motor that graced the ribcage of The Duke so many moons ago. That motor made me happy. It was a balls-out street-fighter; a young and reckless gunslinger. Hell; it was THE DUKE hisownself! The plan was to just re-build the House That Duke Built and carry on.
Not happenin', kids.
The piston problems we've been over already. Plagued by first possible crack issues (which turned out to be a false alarm) followed by pitting and corrosion issues on some of the ring grooves and skirts, these were storms I might have weathered. But the real nail in the proverbial coffin was the compression issue. As it stands, the little 340 sits somewhere around 11.5:1 and that's just too high for today's 91-93 octane gasoline. Too high. Where does that leave us? With several options:
a) Mill the domes down on the already questionable pistons
b) CC the chambers bigger than they already are
c) Throw in a set of forged or hypereutectic pistons

Easy, right?
Not.
Here's why:
Option a: We already established the pistons are questionable. Do we really want to build a house on a questionable foundation? Would you? Plus, machining ain't free, kids. Milling those domes down would probably cost half the price of a set of pistons....and still leave us with all the questions. Plus, Tony is not a fan of big, heavy pistons on a fast revving smallblock. Criminy...these things weigh 660 grams each! I can't really argue with that...much.

Option b) Though I can't remember the volume of the hogged-out chambers, we know stock on these buggers is 65cc already. I'm thinking somewhere between 69-71 to achieve the compression drop we did. That doesn't leave much meat. It also pretty much scraps the heads for any standard build in the future if we hog 'em out any more.

Option c) Throwing in a new set of hypers or forged pistons seems to be the answer...BUT...I don't really like the hypers all that much. I'd rather have forged, such as the Speed Pro L-2316F. But here's the rub.....they don't make them in standard bore.
"So", says Tony, "bore the block .020 over and mill the decks to zero".
Sounds like a plan, but....I don't like the idea of boring a standard block 20-over just to make a piston fit. You can't put metal back once it's gone. "Oh, then use the hypers", you say. "They come in standard".
That's right, they do. But I'm not a big fan of hypers. I told you that. Don't you listen?
"OK, then bore it", you say. Again, don't you listen? Why cut out perfectly good metal?
(I can feel you getting exasperated with me now......)
See, if I slap on those cc'd J heads, any 10:1 piston is gonna drop down into the nines with the oversized chambers....and Tony says I'll need 10:1 to hit my target goal of 400HP.
Well...I DO have those X-heads....and then suddenly a thought creeps, fog-like, into the crevices of my mind....
Out in the garage sits the old '69 block...the one I pirated the forged crank out of....bores worn at least .005 taper by my bore gauge. A block that's doing nothing. A block that the 2.02 X-heads came off of and will bolt right back on. A block that could be dropped off, bored, zero-decked, hot tanked and new cam bearings installed for little more that doing the same to my standard-bore block......
Well...why not?
What that would mean is, I could do a completely different build than I had envisioned, but never touch my standard bore block...save it for a rainy day so to speak.
Will I do it? I don't know.
But the fog is growing thicker.