Fellow bolters . . .

I read the various comments on the 261 boring post and it is clear that many of you guys have more than a casual interest in these old engines. I am building a 292 now and the plan is to run a Whipple supercharger with between 8 and 12 pounds of boost. I am wondering if you can comment on compression ratio as I have been putting off ordering a set of Ross pistons and Crower sportsman rods due to a nagging doubt in the back of my mind regarding a couple of unconventional ideas I have about compression ratio.

Here are my thoughts and goals.

Engine is going to run pump gas and drive through a 700R4 tranny / 3.73 rear, tall stock looking tires in a 51 suburban. I want to have choices down the road if the Whipple doesn't work out so while I want a low compression engine for supercharging purposes . . . if I yank the supercharger I don't want a total dog of a motor with a huge investment in forged pistons. Combustion chambers are 76 cc's and I have been told that in order to run 12 pounds boost on pump gas that I should shoot for 7:1 or at most 7.5:1 CR.

Because I want my engine to run with or without a supercharger and only want to buy one set of pistons . . . I am considering running a Miller Cycle cam (delayed closing of intake valves till 30 - 70 degrees past bottom dead center) - Isky will grind it to whatever I want . . . but I am not really sure what I want to do here. The delayed closing of the intake valve provides a lower mechanical compression ratio thus allowing a higher "real" compression ratio when running a traditional cam.

My thoughts are that I could run with a traditional cam with higher compression ratio and get this rig on the road and then later when I am ready to put a supercharger on it I could put the miller cycle cam in and bolt on the whipple and get the thing going under boost.

Do you guys have any thoughts on this?

Thanks in advance,

Ken