Hey everyone. Got an interesting question today. As my V4 collection grows I have acquired some spare parts, and one of the boxes I got has what I believe are VF1000R heads, and a few other parts. The box has two heads (no valves or springs), all four cams, pistons, a crankshaft, connecting rods, and a starter.
I think they’re VF1000R because they look slightly different from the heads on my VF1000F, and the cams look like VF1000R, with the gears instead of sprockets. My question is, as a VF1000F owner, is there any potential for using this stuff on my bike? Can you swap heads and cams between the two, and would it be worth it?
If I can’t use these for my bike I’d definitely like to sell them to someone that can make good use of them.
The main thing stopping you converting an F an R is that the F cylinder block doesn’t have a machined boss the accept the gear train mounting bolt #30.
Unfortunately not…the crankshafts are different too…the F has a pair of sprockets in the centre for the chains, the R just has a wider single gear in the middle for the cam gear drive mechanism… And as DonR shows, there is a pair of bolts in the “V” of the engine which hold the cam drive geartrain which the F doesn’t have.
Is your F an FE or FF/F2F..?? Are the heads you have for an RE…or RF/RG..?? They are different.
Ahh, with the gear drive out of the question it probably wouldn’t be worth messing with anyway. Are the heads any different? Do they flow any better than F heads, and could you put F cams in them, or use F sprockets on the R cams? But again, probably not worth it for a few extra horsepower anyway even if it were the case.
Not sure which model they are exactly. Tomorrow I can get some pictures and post them up. I’d rather sell them to someone that could make good use of them rather than have them sit around. Seems like R models are few and far between here in the states.
Heads themselves are essentially the same. No, you can’t put F sprockets on the R cams, nothing to bolt them to. F cams have a twin bolt setup, the R cams are totally different.
The FE and RE heads are narrower than the later FF, F2, and RF, RG
Probably the easiest way to tell if early RE or RF,RG is to look at the side of the heads. RF and RGs have a half moon shaped hole where the head and cam caps were line bored. The cam cover gaskets incorporate a rubber half moon to seal this.
Whereabouts are you, I’m interested if you’re in Aus?
Exactly as speedygp has mentioned…the later FF/RF/RG engines have “line-bored” camshaft journals and their heads are a little wider than the '84 FE/RE.
