Sounds great! Keep us posted.
Seeing as you are going to the trouble to blue print a tight quench - might was well coat the pistons and chambers too - it can be worth 10% on some engines. Almost all serious race engines use something like a Swain ceramic coating now, with a teflon coating on the skirts to reduce skirt to bore friction - both good ideas that salvage horsepower everyone else loses to mechanical and thermodynamic losses. Works on street cars too - I was very happy with mine.
I'm amazed you had such trouble finding someone to do what is such a basic power/efficiency trick. Was it a Chevy race specialist machine shop? ....grin ...most of the top Chevy race guys know all about tight quench
A Viper with cast pistons and stock cam could probably go under 0.030" and not hit... but 0.040" is the safe quench for forged pistons running around 0.005" clearance or less. Over 0.040" and benefits start to get lost. 0.040" works for most combos even with the GRP aluminum/Titanium alloy rods to 6000rpm+. You'll gain a little by going tighter, but I would not go much under 0.0375" as the risk goes up as the gains decrease.
