[crazy longhorn]

I will take a shot @ the ?....speaking from gen I experience (mostly), the pistons are generally about .025 below the deck. These engines, ran a factory gasket, in the range of .015- .018... (.040- .042 on the deck). This made a nice 'quench" figure....rebuild, the pistons are .025 shorter, & if you compound that with a .038 gasket, it don't take long to figure that you have crap for quench? The stock pistons on my 5.3 LS, are slightly positive deck (factory)! however, I understand that the replacement pistons, on the overbore are slightly shorter? If you are seeing a longer c to c on the rod, it may compensate for this....so you can still run the thick multi layer gasket , without decking the block I am very new to the LS mills, but will report what I see The stock LS, that I did the top end on....did have pistons , that were positive deck (maybe .006)....Longhorn