I just pulled the heads off of my EA81, and three of my cylinders have cracks between the exhaust and intake valves. I know this is common for the EA82's, is it the same for EA81's? The cracks are all fairly small. I'm going to clean the heads tomarrow to get a better look. Thanks!

Same deal.

same for aircooled volkswagons (and older porsches too so I hear) Its basically a weakness of the boxer engine head design. The area between the valves has a long/skinny cross section, and the water jacket is farther away. The middle heats up faster while the rest of the head remains cool, and voila, fatigue cracks due to different amounts of heat expansion.

same for aircooled volkswagons (and older porsches too so I hear) Its basically a weakness of the boxer engine head design. The area between the valves has a long/skinny cross section, and the water jacket is farther away. The middle heats up faster while the rest of the head remains cool, and voila, fatigue cracks due to different amounts of heat expansion.

 

I'm not sure it really a boxer thing but does seem common to a few of them. But the big plus on the A/C VeeWees is there is no water jacket so you just run'em cracked.

 

Gary