Quench and Head Gasket Thickness
 

Need to order a head gasket for the VVT motor I'm building. I'm shooting to make somewhere in the high 200whp range for the time being, maybe low 300s eventually. Redline is gonna stay at 7,000 rpm and the car's gonna see lots of track time.

Pertinent specs: 84mm 8.7:1 Supertech pistons, head has not been shaved, all four pistons measure .017" below the block deck at TDC.

I've done some research on the forums here and it seems like the ideal quench measurement on these motors is .040-.045" depending on who you ask. A stock .032" head gasket will give me .049" total quench, or I can order a Cometic .023" or .027" to get .040" or .044".

Am I splitting hairs here? Is it worth running a little more quench than .040" if the motor's going to see extended time on track? I'd rather do this once and not have to worry about a piston kissing the head. However, I do want to squeeze all the performance out of this build that I can (safely).

Thanks in advance for anyone willing to offer pertinent advice (or tell me why I'm overthinking this).
-Zak

Closure for this thread.

Did some more research on my own. Seems I was splitting hairs a little bit. I didn't realize stock quench spec is .051". Checked as many build threads as I could and found a range of clearances, even running all the way down to .031" at the lowest end. Cometic .023" and .027" 84mm head gaskets are on a minimum 5 week wait everywhere I checked so I ordered a .030" Cometic and decided to call it a day at .047" quench for my motor.