Budget 318 build

The KB's that are 1.741" CH are actually Silvolite cast pistons. That CH will put your piston tops around .075" in the hole. So they are not any type of higher CH pistons as has been discussed. The 526's are the same CH but are a bit better for compression since they do not have eyebrows for valve clearance. The lack of eyebrows reduces the compression volume by 3 cc's; it is a small help, and, for CR, is equivalent to moving the piston top up by around .015 to .020". But it does not get you where you would ideally like to be; I list those simply because they are best you can get in a stock replacement these days.

KB167's have a CH of 1.810" which would put them about .012" down in the hole from a nominal stock deck height of 9.600". But they are much lighter than stock 318 pistons so that will involve a rebalance of the crank. You can rebalance the crank ONLY, if you are willing to do some work for the other parts (the rods in particular) and can get an accurate scale. But that all may be beyond what you want to do.

So that is it for the least expensive 318 pistons. There was a discussion a few days ago where someone had a '68 318 and the pitons were very high up in the bores, but I don't know where you would get some very early 318 pistons. Maybe an NOS-parts dealer might have some.

As far as measuring the deck height and taper.... the deck height is very difficult to do without precision shop tools. I have never done it on my own as it involves precisely finding the crank centerline. You could do various other things but it takes precise work. For a modest rebuild, I would just run it 'as is'.

As for bore taper, you need at least a telescope gauge and a micrometer; telescope gauges needs some practice to use. For speed, hauling the block to a shop and asking them to do it is quickest.