I may be able to help with the cylinder thickness question--- as well as tell what I think is a cool story
Before I started working at the rod shop the other guy that worked there was charged with towing a '52 Plymouth parts car out to our storage yard, which is 18 miles from our shop, most of which is via highway. He hooked the car up to the wrecker, left the driveshaft in the car, and took off. He didn't realize (i'm still not sure how he couldn't tell) that the trans was in first gear. 65 mph all the way out, the motor grenaded only 2 miles from the yard. I've never figured out the rpm, but I always thought 65 mph in first gear, with 3.90 rear gears was pretty impressive.
Anyway, the car is out there, I've robbed parts off it for other things. The block has a huge hole in the side. It would be the perfect candidate for cutting in half to measure wall thickness.
On another note, I am going to get my piece of 3/8 plate tomorrow morning and begin to make my header/intake flanges.
One other thing I discovered this weekend- 323 straight eight engines are 3.25 bore and have the same pin dia. as the 201's. Anybody have one laying around they can take measurements off of? In a perfect world, they'd have a .250 shorter deck to pin height, to be a perfect stroker piston for the 1/8 over 230. (yeah, that'll happen)
