This was a more expensive engine design. Its advantages over competing L-head engines included more power from its higher compression, better intake mixture flow, less susceptibility to pinging, and greater reliability from its cooling of the exhaust valve and its spring (and having half the number of pushrods of an OHV engine). With only one valve in the head, and one in the block, larger valves can be used than in an OHV engine, to offset the poorer airflow of a side exhaust valve.