ok, so my friend has a b18a1 in his da. hes been complaining to me about problems he's having since he traded his dc for this piece of junk.

now heres the issue. the motor is on timing,sounds like theres valve knock.
he has a ls head, with a 1 layer headgasket unmilled.
he tried another head, with the same headgasket, and still the same sound.

he claims that the guy who put the ls in the da before he traded for it, put gsr rods, and pistons, on a ls crank, in the ls block, with a 1 layer gasket.

now i did some research, and found out that the gsr rods, are longer then the ls rods. so that would mean the piston to deck height is negative, correct? (pistons are poking out the top of the block) i told him to swap out the rods, and pistons, and see if he has the same issue, but i could be wrong...

 

why dont you try an oem gasket?

 

with that set up your buddies compression would be 12.3:1 and have a negative piston to deck height of -0.024 how that motor even runs i have no clue lol and those numbers and compression is with a oem 3 layer head gasket

http://www.zealautowerks.com/bseries.html

check out this compression calculator

 

I would go with a Honda 3 layer HG like mentioned above.

 

How thick is the head gasket? From what I gather, the piston is sticking up out of the bore roughly .050" (or ~1.2mm).

 

so when he tried the other head did he look to see if it had p72's in it? lol

also did any one try a valve adjustment. we need some more info here to help you.