The block could be smoothed out up top but what would that do for valve clearance on the head to deck surface with this head?
Any head milling or block decking is going to move the valves and the pistons closer together. So will the installation of a "shim" head gasket instead of the sandwich-construction "no retorque" style of gasket. All those dimensions need to be considered when building a high performance engine with a radical cam profile- - - -not so much with a stock engine unless a lot of material is removed somewhere.
The 848 head has the equivalent of a .100" milling job on the earlier head, but the 848 compensates for the closer valve/piston relationship by sinking the intake valves further back into the head to preserve the valve to piston clearance. If the earlier head is milled to get the same compression as an 848, the intake valves must be recessed to prevent interference. Shrouding the valves hurts intake flow, so the compression increase comes with somewhat of a tradeoff in breathing ability. The stovebolt head has port shapes that suck like a Hoover upright vacuum cleaner, so nothing much short of supercharging is going to help the gas flow much!
Jerry
