[blykins]

You can run 11:1 on a lot of stuff with pump gas. It takes a little bit more attention during the planning/assembly states of the build, but it can be done without much difficulty.

But Jay is right.....the VVT helps out tremendously. When you can retard the cam timing way back, you can get away with a lot of stuff. When you do that on a normal engine, you get a pig lazy bottom end, poor idle characteristics, etc. However, when you can adjust the cam timing on the fly, you have a lot better scenario.