I'm working on my ST2 engine and was surprised by the quality of the inlet and exhaust ports. The SS heads are very poor in comparison, As i have a 1997 ST2 engine i'm wondering if Ducati spent more time working on the heads on the new to the market at the time1997 ST2. ?
With you on the SS heads ..... it looks like they designed the head and forgot to put in inlet port in, so just drilled a hole in from the side! Have you taken any pics? Is the inlet port at a higher angle? I've never looked at whether the ST heads flow any better as I know they wont swap (for obvious reasons); always just cleaned up the area around the valve guides on the SS heads instead to get some flow 'behind' the valve head...... but the metal is very thin in that area (I know by experience!!!)
Will take a pic but having trouble loading then to my laptop at the mo........... The casting is very different because of the water chambers for cooling. To explain a little on the inlet port. On the ss heads if you look into the port your hard pressed to see the vale seat but on the st2 you can see most of the vale seat. Yes i have cleaned up around the valve guide location and gave it a sharper leading edge.
