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Will a r/t 450 desmo head bolt onto a scrambler 450?

Yes

what are the advantages or disadvantages of swapping the original scrambler head with a desmo. Is it worth it?

Just the usual desmo blues - more maintenance required.
It's very busy in there, especially on 450s that have intersecting bored holes that need more O-rings than the smaller desmo heads.
Nice hobby though.

Aye wmpowell,

Agree with the sentiment expressed by Jordan, added complication for no gain in performance. A 450 engine just doesn't rev hard enough to warrant the use of a desmo valve system, especially with a 29mm Dellorto fitted and the additional shimming just adds to the hours spent setting the beastie up, when with a valve spring head you have a chance to be out riding the bike.

However, it's your engine!

Good health, Bill

Yeah looks like the expense of buying the head and doing all the extra maintenance with no performance increase it doesn't look like it is
worth it, thanks for the replies. New to the 450 after 50yrs. I had one while stationed in Italy in 72-73 really liked the bike, smoked the new
then Honda 750's thru curves in the mountains. I always wanted a r/t could have picked one up in the late 90's for 1200.00. Well the Scrambler
should be an overall better street/trail bike as I live in Arizona.

Aye wmpowell,

May I suggest that you add "Arizona" or "USA" to your profile location. It helps when making "suggestions" about spares availability, or service suppliers to know the other party is actually half the world away, with all that might imply!

Good health, Bill

thanks just figured out how to do that
Thanks for the replies
Bill

wmpowell wrote:Yeah looks like the expense of buying the head and doing all the extra maintenance with no performance increase it doesn't look like it is worth it <snip>

Absolutely pointless. You will see no improvement in performance.

Remember why desmodromic or rather, "positive valve closing" was conceived in the first place. It was to overcome valve bounce at high revs that was the consequence of relatively undeveloped spring steel technology.

Advances in steel composition and manufacture had made the system redundant by the 1960s. That's why no one else used it.

Just don't ask why Ducati persisted with it ...

It was a marketing tool!
Cheers,
George