Thanks for all the good info. Here's what happened:
We all know that restoring an old rusty Cuda can get expensive quickly. Although I will one day put a 440 in it, I wanted a cheap rebuild ($1500) on my numbers matching 318, which was bone stock, except for the Edelbrock RPM intake (and the previous owner had a Holley 650 double pumper, which was in pretty bad condition, so replaced it with an Edelbrock 600).
I'm new to the local area, but joined a mopar club, and everyone recommended one engine guy, who is reputed to do 70% of all performance engine work in the area, a fairly big area. I went to meet with him, brought a friend, and both of us got the impression he's pretty cocky, but were sure he knows his business, so I went with it, asking him to build the best he can for $1500, and sorry I'm so limited on funds at the moment.
When it was done, he couldn't really explain anything to me about it. He said he bored it 30 over, ported the heads, a zillion such machine shop things, put the tallest pistons in there he could get, so he said, and that they were still down in the hole, and he was guessing 8:1 compression, but was really unsure. He said the lower half of the motor had never been opened before, and original compression was 8.5:1.
So I asked what cam went in it, and he didn't know, but had to go look it up. I asked about the pistons, and the same thing, it took a while for him to figure it out. At first he was guessing Silvomatic (I think, which I looked up and thought was the cheapest I found), and he said Zollner Z7035 pistons. The overall feeling we got both times was that he just didn't care because it wasn't a 440. My friend was really concerned, thinking he took the money and put the cheapest parts in, and was wondering what kind of bearings, etc. he used.
On the bright side, he is well reputed, and I'm sure it'll run forever, but just the same, that's not how I was expecting to be treated for $1500, guess you just had to be there, but I remained professional and optimistic. So I'm really curious about these pistons and my compression.
The cam is a Crane Energizer cam with lift kit, part #150052, with 454 lift and 272 duration.
Spark plugs are RN9YC, gapped to .39, headers are flowtech, timing is set to 40. That's about all I know.
I tried to look up Zollner pistons online, and specifically Z7035, but had no luck finding anything. Any info is greatly appreciated. Thanks.
