When I had one built that way, I had the block decked. Can't remember how much, enough to get the Case piston to have about equal height to the top of the block as the 407 piston did. Some days I wonder about how I assembled that first engine & it had to be just dumb luck that it ran as long & hard as it did!
did you have the block filled all the way to the top. what combo did you use. how bad is the loss of the compression going to hurt other than just having to ether start it every time we may shoot water to it.
I didn't have it filled all the way to the top, and that was what led to the demise of that engine. Chalk that one up to experience learned. I used 2290 pistons with 1456 407 rods. Gotta machine a lil off the bottom of the pistons also to clear the lobes on the camshaft. It had a 3LM-466 & an A-pump on it. I could have maybe had less machined off the block & just used a thinner copper head gasket, since that's what was in it when I built it. It didn't need ether on a regular basis, but wasn't as good starting as the 407 stroker that took its place.
