I agree with Kirby. Take both heads & put them together with the locating dowels. They should match up perfectly. I don't think I ever seen a set that didn't BUT I have seen where one head had some machine work done to it when the other one didn't.
Here's an example: Guy drops a valve. Pulls the head to have it fixed. After the work is done they machine the gasket surface to clean it up & get the CC's to match. Let's say they cut.050 [just an example]. Put the head back on & the manifold won't line up. Most times they don't notice but they can't figure out why it's leaking. it's the little things that get overlooked.

 

Yep ... Re-engineering the unit isn't fixing the problem, it's fixing a sympton.

 

Well I would agree with everyone. I have never seen this before either but like my friend says, I seem to find problems that he's never seen either! I like the idea to mate it to another head and see how it lines up. I have a spare set of stock heads laying around so I could easily do that.

I finished the dowels and put them in and it looks great. The old Ram Jett intake has .0015" clearance evenly around. When I feel inside the port lines up nicely and the air cleaner bosses are lined up. So it all came in with a .0075" offset on the dowels. Actually when I first did it I was twisting the head while I tightened the nuts and it was too much so I let it relax and it came right in.

As far as the dowels and the head gasket, the gasket doesn't know the difference, it's just rotated slightly. The bore is still in the middle and the nuts went right in, I don't see where rotation would hurt anything. I mean it's barely more than a RCH!

I consider that the castings are set up on a fixture for machining. In a mass production process the thought that there will never be a little chip stuck on the fixture causing a misalignment is wishful thinking unless all the machined surfaces are done with the same set up.

From the looks of the intake sealing surface it doesn't look like they flycut it when ported. I'm only running 9.3 compression so I doubt they shaved them since I'm using thinner head gaskets.

I appreciate the comments and I'm with everybody, I ain't never seen nothing like this before!

As well as it's lined up right now I'm going to go back together and hopefully it will cure my intake and exhaust leak.

 

I think if it was a BCH you would have been ok but a RCH is a bit to far out.

 

Without a doubt!

 

Wow that is interesting.
Had my heads ported also, they cut off about .025 off the gasket surface, to get the compression right. I have been having a heck of a time getting my intake to seal up also. Must have had it apart 25 times, Lost track, I've done it so many times. Was kinda thinking about this same problem (dowels not machined in the right location) But I dont have a solid intake like you are talking about, to check it with.

I think I finally got it sealed up though, we will see how this summer goes anyway. My air cleaner backing plate was a mess, its one of them Screamin Eagle cast ones. I had to machine the gasket surface flat for one thing and then I shimmed behind the breather flanges to get the right positioning for the throttle body.
I also had to cut the ends of the throttle body to get more clearance in between it and the heads. I think I am at about .025 per side clearance now. Everyone kept saying as long as you can get the bolts in you should be good, like maybe .010 per side, but I compared it to my evo on the clearance, I think the evo might even be more than .025 per side.

So far it seems to be working, I keep wondering if having more clearance is the trick?
Would be really interesting to see if that solid intake does the same on mine as it did on yours, though.
We might be on to something, another Harley screw up?

 

For the record, I don't actually use the Ram Jett intake. I was just using it as a guide. If you bolt in a solid intake then as your cylinders grow from heat the intake will be put in a bind. That's why they use the seals, so the intake actually slides in and out of the seals as the cylinder/heads grow.

If you check the air cleaner mounts with a straight edge you should be able to see if they are lined up. Like I said, once the front head was rotated to give the proper angle to the Ram Jett the air cleaner mounts lined up too. So just checking the mounts might give you an indicator as to any issues.

I believe there are a lot more intake leaks out there but with fuel injection compensating for it many don't even realize it. But when you have a carburetor, a wide band O2 sensor and some Innovate Motorsports electronics with an Air/Fuel ratio gauge on the dash you can just watch it starting to leak. If you jet it big enough for a smooth idle your slow speed runs 12:1 or worse and your mileage takes a huge dump!

 

For all of those that said something was amiss you were correct. My temporary repair did work for a while. I was rushed trying to get it back together for a long trip. By the time I got home the intake was leaking again and when I checked the head it had moved. I've finally gotten time to tear it all down and find the real culprit. What I found was human error plain and simple. I've been rebuilding equipment and engines for over 38 years but every once in a while I screw up!

I found that when I originally build the engine I had used .036" head gaskets from James. They use an o-ring around the dowel pins. I grabbed a stock o-ring which was too thick for my .036" gaskets. Since the holes in the head have a little clearance in them the o-rings were forced up into the pin area and just so happened they forced the heads to rotate counter clockwise giving me misalignment enough to screw everything up.

I pulled the heads and checked them and they were both fine. I snugged the cylinders down and put a straight edge along both sets of dowels, (I put stock ones back in), and the straight edges lined right up so no problem with the cylinders or cases either. I then cleaned and installed the heads without a gasket and just snugged them hand tight and checked air cleaner alignment and it was perfect. I install the Ramm Jett intake and ended up with .019" +/- .001" all the way around with a feeler gauge. I had also used a tool I made that holds the air cleaner bosses in line. However this time there wasn't any forcing of the issue!

Just to let you know how much pressure the large o-ring had, the rear head gasket had split to the outside at one dowel hole and actually moved the fire ring in toward the cylinder on the other hole. That had to take some pressure!

I just wanted to follow up with the final diagnosis. Many threads seem to dead end and nobody knows what actually worked!

BTW, I'm using Cometic metal gaskets this time, I don't have to worry about using the wrong o-ring since they don't use any!

Thanks for the replies guys!

 

Well the saga continues. With the heads finger tight everything is aligned perfectly. As I started my torquing of the heads I did the 7 then 16 lbs as usual and then checked alignment before the final 90 degrees. Well, they pulled off again, right back where it was. That's when it dawned on me. These heads did not come off my bike and have been on and off several times. What's happening is the same thing that happens when you align a motor to a pump. You must have thick flat washers under your bolt heads because as you tighten the bolts the original washers have already been bent into a location and will pull right back where they came from if you don't change them. Same way with these heads, the impression the head of the bolt makes in the aluminum must be machined out flat again or you can put in a flat washer. I found that a 14mm metric washer fits the spot face perfectly and will not move around. I only had one washer so went down to Ace and got the last four washers they had but they weren't stainless but will work for my experiment. I had to sand off about .003" but they fit well. I then torqued them back to 16 lbs. and checked alignment. Instead of being off over .030" it was just a couple of thousands. I could see light but not enough to worry about. So now I'm going to pick up some stainless washers and torque both heads and make sure they are aligned properly.

If you're having your heads machined in any way you might consider having the shop spot face the mounting surfaces flat again so you don't have this issue. So even though I screwed up with the wrong o-rings, I don't believe that's what was causing my issue.

 

Just an update for anybody still following this ramble. After torquing the heads completely they remain aligned. I finished assembling everything and it looks great. The intake aligns just right with the ports on both sides now. If it wasn't snowing I would have finished throwing the tank on and starting it but will wait till the weekend when it warms up. I truly hope I have a properly idling Harley for a change.