Ahh, to have so much time to play.What would be neet would be for some of the hot-shot engineers & machinest on the list to create a new head for the air cooled bikes that uses a better combustion chamber design & 3 valves, but will still use as many of the stock parts as possible. Dozens of Harley guys do this, why not us??
You rang?What would be neet would be for some of the hot-shot engineers & machinest on the list to create a new head for the air cooled bikes that uses a better combustion chamber design & 3 valves, but will still use as many of the stock parts as possible. Dozens of Harley guys do this, why not us??
Heh. Guy Martin already is doing this to your own heads. He looked into producing his own heads but the cost was too high due to complexity of the air cooling passages.What would be neet would be for some of the hot-shot engineers & machinest on the list to create a new head for the air cooled bikes that uses a better combustion chamber design & 3 valves, but will still use as many of the stock parts as possible. Dozens of Harley guys do this, why not us??
What makes this analogy a stretch is the fact that the Hardley Ableson market is HUGE compared to 2V ducati market, probably more than 100 times larger. And this goes even larger when you consider the number of custom built bikes and the fact that their entire engines are aftermarket. You see none of this with Ducati. Probably never will.The analogy is a bit of a stretch, but here goes. Many years ago, I was acquainted with Nigel Patrick, of Patrick Racing. He had just started making billet cylinder heads for Harleys. His billet head would flow better right out of the box than the best welded and ported stock head, and was lots better looking. He's doing rather well now.
I think you are underestimating what is entailed. You do realize there is an air passage that goes through the head underneath the SOHC cam? The heads are not trivial. If you make it easy to manufacture, then there are many pieces to bolt together, as layers. I think that may wreak havoc on rigidity.Maybe I'd do the design myself, make the patterns too, and sell a couple handfuls of heads at cost + 25%, just for the fun of it along with the small money. I don't imagine that's Guy's business model, but I could be wrong.
Yes, that is exactly what Guy Martin is doing now. (As stated above) Rather than manufacture heads, he modifies the customers' heads. Even though he hass perfect recipe, I seriously believe only 5% of the engine tuners out there would bother to replicate it... or manage to replicate it.How about taking a stock set of heads and porting etc. This may be an easier (although not as fun) route? With a little research the ideal port profiles could be determined for everyone else to follow.
I've done many one-off projects, taking a basic concept all the way to a finished, fully functional prototype. I did one that worked very well, especially considering that the company that I worked for failed when they tried to do it. That company is selling lots of the production version of that concept now. They wouldn't be selling d!ck if I had accepted the 'can't be done' statement they laid on me.