The Xrs have the spark plug between the two exhaust valves and there's not much meat there and can crack there , but saying this mine was fine , the 350 and 250 had head cracking probs two they don't have much fin length on there heads that's why ballards done the welded on longer fin heads mods to cool them better .
A mate of mine got a guy in Sydney that puts a insert in the head to fit a smaller dia spark plug to make a bigger gap between the exhaust valves to stop cracking heads.
But the xr500 83 ,84 go well