but to make sure its done right, what all has to be done,
thats what i have been wondering.
i just rebuilt it (with stock parts) and dont want to have to go back and change everything. i also only have access to 92 octane gas

 

shaved head will affect cam timing, make piston to valve clearances tighter, raise compression, may result in need to run race gas, soooo, I would say unless you really know how to adjust/compensate, it will affect reliability. If done right, it will not affect reliability & will provide more compression. I would just order a higher comp piston, jmo.

 

i dont need to worry about timing chains and cams.
i'll leave that stuff up to the thumpers. I dont want to rebuild again that is why im not ordering a high compression piston.

 

you can safely remove -.020 off the stock head with no porting or if you have porting you could then go -.030 off, anything more and you will have to have the squish band recut and depending on the compression psi have to run higer octane fuel.
Example: I currently have -.030 taking off my head along with vito's power pistons to give me a total of 165 psi of compression with +4 degrees of timing advance and this is borderline between pump gas and race gas but I run on 93 pump gas with no problems so far.....knock on wood!

 

I was told that you can safely remove up to 0.040 from the head on stock piston and pump gas because the stock blaster only has a 6:1 compression ratio. The stock head is 22cc and can be taken down to 17cc by removing 0.040.

Doing this will only raise the compression to about 145psi