Is the bailing wire OEM or aftermarket. I bet OEM Harley bailing wire comes on a large spool.

Weeby?

Better than the Cessna 152 I flew in recently--lots of duct tape used as structural adhesive. :(

I hope you didn't find the duct tape until after you were in the air,...

In fact the nickname 'Speeder' was earned on that very mattress.

Since we're gettin' our designations straight, isn't it an ironJUG sporty not an ironHEAD??

It's still a shovel...

Carter

This! I hate choppers but the 13 year old living inside my brain would love to have one...

Obviously the bike would be a "fixer upper" add an air cleaner (maybe a skull shaped one? That would be kewl!) and sticker removal would be project #1

That's not the normal attire for this bike but hey, to each their own. :cool:

Rock and Brook's Bros another oxymoron I think.... perhaps in one's mind, but not in reality.... esp not if the collar gets flipped up....

Uh, no...

Both the heads and cylinders are cast iron on an Ironhead Sporty. On a Shovelhead, the cylinders are cast iron and the heads are aluminum. Additionally, the Sportster has always been a unit construction design with the motor/primary drive/transmission all sharing a common case (actually one of the first), whereas the "Big Twin" (early sidevalves, Knuckles, Pans, Shovels, Evos, and now Twin Cams) have always had three separate cases - engine, primary drive, and tranny all run in their own individual cases. Two entirely different machines. So, no, an Ironhead Sportster is not a Shovelhead.

As an aside, Trock Cycle did, however, make what they called a "Shovester" kit to put Shovelhead heads on Ironhead Sportsters. They allowed for bigger valves and ports, which we all discovered was a step in the wrong direction on these motors. The real "trick" heads were the old Robeson Industries "Thunderheads", which were aluminum and more or less mimicked XR750 heads, but fit the cast iron cylinders of the 900 and 1000cc Ironhead Sportsters.

So, um, yeah - let's get these designations straight. It's pretty clear you really aren't "an old Harley guy" after all...

Good old Higgins, making friends on the internet.

One of the most popular performance heads for Harley Davidsons were the fabulous, the famous, the fantastic Richards heads. More commonly know as Dickheads.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ This is completely correct^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^


Although I would add that there is more cast steel - than iron in those castings - Harley wanted cheap but also weight was an issue so there is more cast steel - than iron. Pretty good design / castings really considering the R&D and prototyping occurred late 1940's and production early-mid 1950's with the "K" model.

The issues with the "Shovester" conversions were 3 problem areas: 1) The stock head intake ports were already a little too large on the Sportster. So unless you were stroking it substantially the performance below 4500rpm's was worse. 2) The intake / exhaust ports on the Shovel head engines were too big as well so putting these on a stock displacement sporty killed the low-mid range. 3) The valve / rocker arm angles are way different between the two because the Sporty has 4 cams and the push rod angle is perfectly straight to the rocker. Shovels have 1 cam push rod angles are just that......... angled to the rocker arm. The most severe being the front exhaust push rod.

Then came "Thunder heads" because everyone realized that the Shovester conversions really don't work under any circumstances. The Thunderheads were aluminum, had way better (modern) combustion chamber and valve angles and the port volume was actually smaller. Big gains could be had but there were limitations. If you stroked it or put big cam / carb on it the heads would not support the airflow. Also using 1 carb with "Y" intake hurt potential performance compared to the XR heads at that time ( 2 carbs - cross flow ports intake / exhaust)


To summarize the Thunder heads were really good for stock displacement Sporty that was not too highly modified - which was the broadest market intended. BUT they were very expensive, relatively speaking, at the time and sales were not what the company had hoped and ultimately went bankrupt.


Note - I cannot help myself here W/O posting a picture of my "Iron Sportster" :D

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1411220289.jpg

That's not much worse than a k&n, :)

Just trying to keep things straight, for anyone who really gives a rip's benefit. No ill will intended. Of course with guys like you who seem to always have a chip on their shoulders, and honestly believe someone else is "stalking" you here (re: your meltdown over varmint on the "how low..." thread), I suppose even "merry Christmas" could have negative connotations.

Any idea how many were made? I do see these come up for sale periodically on the various H-D forums. Big, big bucks...

So, which would ultimately make more power, Thunderheads or XR1000 heads? I remember when the old XL List guys tried to regain the land speed record for stock 1000 cc pushrod twins from some guys who set it with a Guzzi. They tried and tried at Maxton (and possibly Bonneville) and finally gave up on any kind of Ironhead. They could not use the Thunderheads in their class. They then went to an Evo based bike and quite easily regained the record. That tells me even the twin carbureted XR1000 heads won't make Evo levels of power.

Unless, of course, one removes the aircleaner, like Speeder...

Jeff, you have the biggest chip on your shoulder of anyone on this forum. You should really see a professional about it, you have a more serious case of *little man complex* than varmint. Ok, maybe not worse but darn close. :)

And talk to them about your projecting while you're there, get your money's worth. :)

So that's how Denis remain anonymous, and why he face-plants so regularly. Probably explains his affinity for used mattresses as well...