A while back I was looking at a stock head and cylinder I have laying on the shelf and I did mention it in another thread but don't remember which one. I stated that there was an issue I spotted. Well here it is. If you look close you will see a gap between the head and cylinder. You will also note that the cylinder and the head still have the original Honda rubber snubbers between the fins.

I measured this gap and it came in at .016" - .017" clearance.
This means that those of you running the stock set up are actually trying to crush these uncrushable rubber snubbers. These damn things are hard. So if you're trying to run one shim of the original stock head gasket or any gasket about .020" or less then you're not getting the correct torque on the head.
Just my opinion.
CO

Have you tried to torque the head down like that? I think it would squish the rubber enough. I guess you could sand down the rubber a little to make up the difference if needed

Measure the torque required of all head bolts to get the clearance to 0.000". I bet its not as much as you think. Then head gaskets would take up that gap anyways.

I have not played around with this head n cylinder. It's just a spare sitting on the shelf.
I was just yapping here about what I see. The point I was trying to make is that your torque wrench would be off because you have to squish these hard rubber bits. If you're using one shim from the original head gasket (about .010) your torque wrench is reading the squish on the rubber.
In my opinion anyone doing this needs to remove the top rubber bit. They break off easy. Just grab it and twist it like a bottle cap.

Zero: If I get a chance I will so that some day and report back.
CO

They've probably hardened over the 40 years, I suspect they weren't originally that hard.

That’s what she said....

Can anyone answer the trivia question as to what those little rubber buggers are for?

Rand

Hello Randman, noise, they keep the fins from vibrating.

My guess would be to keep the fins from breaking from vibration?

Correct and correct!

If you pull them out and run the Oddy, you get a very strange resonance noise at certain rpm's.

I would guess from the bizarre noise they make from the vibration I would venture to guess they will eventually break off.

Rand

They might as well vibrate and snap off because they don't do any good unless you're running AVGAS.
CO