So, I will be picking up a 650 SS engine next week for my Pantah racer. I was wondering what would be the best stock head and camshaft combo with my current parts stash. I have 1981 500 SL heads and cams as well as the 1986 650 SS heads and cams. I have taken a look at the bikeboy website and to me it looks like the 500 SL cams might be a little hotter than the 650 cams. Would there be any advantage to running the 500 cams in the 650 heads? Or are the heads exactly the same and I could just put the 500 heads on the 650? Option #3 would be to just leave everything alone because any gains would be minimal and not worth the effort.

I also saw in another post that a guy was running epm mag wheels. Are these a straight bolt in affair or would custom spacers need to be made up?

Thanks
Dave

You can use two front cams from a later vee twin, I used 900ie cams and I believe the ST2 cams are also good.
You get more lift and duration than 500 cams and the 650 Ally cams are very mild.
If you use 2 x 900 ie front cyl cams you will to re mark the rear cams position and dial them in properly.

Graeme

I am with Graeme. It is not worth the effort to swap the 500 cams into the 650 heads --- very minor diff --- if any. But 900 cams will fit without valve-to-valve contact; I cannot say about valve-to-piston clearance. Do remember you are going from 500 to 650cc, so that will help a lot. MikeV

Ok, I will keep an eye out for some 900 cams. I do not see any reasonably priced at the moment. I will probably end up having to buy two sets to get two fronts.

Dave