Adam I have read through the posts and there is a lot of good info here. Now going back to your original post, what exactly are your goals (to fit a certain class, ET, MPH ,HP) etc?
Myself also new to SOHC Honda performace engines, I had posted up a thread asking about what could be expected in terms of both horsepower and cylinder head numbers flow wise. The cylinder head flow numbers will directly give an idea as to how much horsepower a given engine will produce. When it comes to the IC engine one simply cannot "cheat" the engine into making more power than the head will provide. Barring nitrous use or turbo.
A few years back I built a Kawasaki KZ 1428 with a completely stock head (head flowed about 70 cfm @10). It ran great with killer monster torque, but at the end of the day it simply was not very fast. That head was going to produce roughly 120 crank HP reguardless of how many CC's I put under it.
My goal has always been a 10 sec sohc Honda drag bike. I wanted something that would make the crotch rocket crowd at the drag strip give a second look to a 30 + year old bike that lays down similar numbers to their factory bikes. As I dug into the build I realized we don't have the cash to build this engine big enough to run 10's consistently. So racing heads up is out of the question.
We don't have a motorcycle drag community around here, it is coming and this build will be a big part of that. My partner and I ( I handle the engine design, he handles the FI and chassis) are racing our selves for the most part. One of the regular drag racers runs a extended swing arm, air shift, 1400 ninja. I know him fairly well, the bike has no engine work. 9.42 @ 146MPH. There are a lot of "drop in" in guys running factory bikes on average mid 10's due to lack of skill, not engine. Our goal is to see what we got in the 11's. This is all about pushing our selves to see what we can come up with design wise.
A 1996 GSXR fell in our laps this mourning, I just finished striping it down, looks like we got a swing arm, front end, wheels and brakes to work with. Have to dig into it more tomorrow to see if we can use it all. The swing arm can defiantly work and that rear wheel gives us a 180 size tire to start with
On the point of the head flow, this F head can support a 1080cc engine flow wise. So flow wise it should support the 973cc. The 67mm bore should work nicely to unshroud the large valves in the F head. Large valves and in the case of the F head, nice intake ports, are not typical of a undersquare engine. The natural characteristics of the undersquare engine combined with a head that flows on a undersquare engine, in my mind, should produce an engine capable of 100HP and low 11 sec passes on a good chassis.
As Jon said, the torque curve should be the ticket here. HondaMan also mentioned that with a undersquare engine, as these were stock, a turbo charging effect comes into play in the stock engines around 6500 RPM with the 28mm carbs, and about 7700 RPM with the 31mm. He also mentioned that as the intake valve gets bigger so can the carbs. So with the stock valve size of the F head being 34mm this should move this effect even further up the rpm range. We will be running gsxr throttle bodies so will have to see how this relates.
Cheers,
Adam
