Well that would be no different that shaving the head with stock pistons. Ford used to sell 12.3:1 cast pistons for the 1.6, cast was good enough for them it should be good enough for me (until one adds boost of course)

I've looked into Duratecs, they're awfully nice but their trannys here in the states are crap..... The 2006+ autos are alright but the earlier ones are junk, also all of the manuals are geared too darn tall and really hard to find. And lastly the Duratec trannys are all pretty weak, these old MTXs are really hardy.

I've thought about the Zetec swap but the only one worth doing is the SVT Focus swap - which are pretty hard to come by. Any other Zetec will cost you more to swap than it would to get the same power from a CVH.

I'd like to stay carbureted with these too for my resto-mods, I have a very rare Ford EXP to completely rebuild and it will appear totally stock for shows but I want it to be capable of sharing the roads with modern cars so the 65hp 1.6 CVH and 4-speed is getting bumped up to a 140-150hp 1.9 CVH and 5-speed so continuous highway speeds of 70mph is no issue.

I'd have more time and money wrapped up in swapping, praying it all fits and works right than I would at custom ordering pistons for a CVH knowing that with bike carbs, more compression, header, porting, and better cam I can have the same 160hp.