WR motor with panhead topend

A friend sent me this pic of a motor he picked up that was in a lot buy only,no single items for sale.It's a WR bottom end and has unmodified pan cylinders and heads on it.They are connected together by a casting that bolts to the WR cases and then the pan cylinders bolt to it.No machining done on cylinders or WR cases.He didn't know if the casting was "one off" or done by a small manufacturer at some point.He's putting dual carbs on it and sticking it in a WL solo frame that someone has previously butchered in a very violent manner.Anyway i thought you might enjoy the oddity of it all.


http://i121.photobucket.com/albums/o240 ... dMotor.jpg

that's ............... different. Then again, people would sometimes build those panhead sportsters, no?

Yes you are correct about the shovelhead sportsters.I believe it was Ron Trock that made special cylinders with small enough spigots to fit the sportster cases.Anyway it was a highly specialized cylinder originally designed and made for putting shovelheads on drag racing sportsters to get them to breathe more.These are stock numbered off the shelf pan cylinders,and un modded WR cases,that's what makes it so weird to me..........

..

Looks like a waste of a good WR lower to me! If the top end problems were overcome to actually make it run there needs to be a cage around it to catch all the scattered bits when it comes apart. Once again it begs the question WHY?
Robbie

..

Perhaps the rockers are easily re-worked Panic (or not!), but what about cam lift, oil supply, as you mentioned the manifold, and the myriad of small details to end up with an engine that would actually run but would undoubtedly stress the lower end and cases. But that being said it is his engine and he is free to throw as much time and money at it as he likes. Here's to the creative spirit, may it always flourish!
Robbie

This idea isn't as crazy as you think. Rikuo built something very similar.
Here is a 1960 Rikuo. I believe its a prototype that was never sold to the public.
It looks like a 4 cam bottom end with something similar to a panhead topend on it.
I found these pix posted by RTWDoug over at advrider.com.

Man! That looks like a FLH XL and a WLR made sweet sweet loving and had a bastard child