quench vs no quench?

if you take detonation out of the question, would the quench head reqiure less timing
Yes
, making less negative torque than the open chamber, which may require or like more timing to make peak power?
Not sure what you mean there.
Timing lead is needed because of the rpm window the engine operates in. An intake charge comprised of air and a given fuel burns at a constant rate assuming a homogeneous combining of the two component parts. That burn produces a pressure spike in the cylinder at a specific moment. By adjusting when that mix is ignited, we can tailer the pressure spike to happen at the period of highest leverage on the crank. As rpms rise, we need to ignite that mix earlier in order to keep that spike at the right place in terms of crank degrees because the crank is moving faster, where the burn is not. In larger open chamber, wide piston to head clearance engines, there is much a greater chance that the mixture will not be homogeneous throughout the space. Large combustion chambers promote waste areas such as around the perimiter of the chamber, down to the top of the top ring, recessed spark plug bosses, etc. The more of the intake charge is wasted, the less power per unit of fuel will be used and turned into power. Quench in and of itself is a cooling process - it's a part of the process that a well designed and exectuted, tight piston-to-head engine will give you. What really makes the power is tuble and swirl. Those, in addition to quenching, are produced by a close piston to head clearance (less than .040"). The mixture stays honogeneous and directly adjacent to the spark plug, so the ignition is instantaneous, the burn is complete, little of the intake charge is wasted, and it all can push the crank hardest at the right moment. All that translates in more power for the same given amount of fuel.