[Bill Baer]

I discussed this at length with an engine builder friend of mine (who builds mostly gasoline drag racing motors) and for reliability reasons he “wouldn’t let a motor leave his shop with at 17:1 C/R’ It was his opinion that that’s too close to the ragged edge and if he built such a motor it would surely come back to bite him”.
So our theories aside, based upon what your sprint car guys and my buddys input maybe you should look elsewhere for power, obviously air flow and fuel mixture quality would be the logical place to start looking there may also be some improvements to be found in spark/timing management as well.
Good luck.