Good observation. A few month's ago, Kevin Cameron's column in Cycle World focused on H-D's interest in water-cooling its Big Twin's, specifically at the exhaust valve area, to reduce excessive heat. Oil "coking" was noted as a problem. He also mentioned that BMW had included oil drainage relief in their oilheads so that the effects of coking near the valves were minimized.
I imagine that BMW couldn't increase displacement & HP any further under the opposed-twin design with oil cooling. Hence, the Wethead.
Without getting into the other pro's & con's of the new design, I trust that those more-exposed headers are resistant to corrosion. My old Suzuki GSX-1100F's headers were sandblasted by debris throw up from the front tire. I ended up having them treated by Jet Hot to remove the corrosion.



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