Deck height, What went wrong? Options

[DavidSweden]

I am rebuilding my 2.0 engine

This evening I installed #4 cylinder & piston (with new rings). I then tightened the cylinder down onto the case to measure the deck height.
The deck height came to 0.2mm which is 0.008". as I understand it the deck height should be about 1mm (0.04").
I have installed new crank bearings, the piston and cylinder are original, the shim under the cylinder is the same thickness as the original shim.

The deck height should be the same as before the rebuild shouldn't it? Anyhow the deck height seem very small.

Advice appreciated

[stugray]

Is there a minimum deck height to avoid the piston hitting the valves?

As Chris mentioned above, the deck height measurement alone governs if the piston will hit the head at temp.
The secondary reason for adjusting deck is to set the compression ratio once you have CC'd the heads.

I recall Jake mention once that a min of .025 is a number that should never be crossed and that requires some extra scrutiny.
So I considered .035 enough when I built mine.

The question regarding the valves hitting the piston has to do with your cam selection and IF you have oversized valves.
IF you are running a stock cam and stock valves, then .035 - .040 deck height would be fine.
This can be checked with the "clay method" once you have the base shims installed and the valve train geometry adjusted (if required).
This pic shows my valve clearance, and I got a secondary check of my deck hegit for free (look on lower right side of clay)
(IMG:http://www.914world.com/bbs2/uploads_offsite/i366.photobucket.com-10819-1420921464.1.jpg)

However your numbers DO seem pretty small.
Even after I had my case machined flat (the machinist called it "decking the registers") I still had over .020 deck height on all 4 with no shims.