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Hmmm... let's see: air cooled cylinder, high cam, short pushrods opening valves via rockers - something about it is just so familiar. Ah yes! It seems that Giovanni Parrilla might have had the idea first. But bevel gears* (see correction - thanks Pete) and shaft was his choice of drive. Back in the day, I lusted after a 250 Wildcat scrambler.

I have a 2004 V11 Sport Ballabio. It had the correct size of boss on the shifter since new. It broke the spring about every 4,000 miles. I tried stock spring, better spring that would not break, but they still did. I was about to do the coil spring mod when Chuck and Scud came up with the fix with the spring with thinner spring steel and two wraps in the coil. I installed about a year and 4000 miles ago and has worked perfectly since. It is the best solution. contact Chuck / Scud about if they are making more or have available

It's advisable.

Love the V11LeMans.com

I love the textures, and shadows, and reflections, and colors in this image! How the arc of the raw, Sport clock-mount breaks the line of the brick . . . the glow of the hydraulic fluid in the California sun. Next to that incomparable Legnano Green . . . Brembo in the shadows . . .

No muffler, that is a reverse cone megaphone on the Wildcat Scrambler. What I did not know was that Parilla used the Gran Sport road racing motor in the Wildcat. Some noise and some fun!

I replaced a set of gears for a guy's Centauro. It wasn't *quite* that bad.. but I could feel the particulates in the oil as soon as I opened the timing chest. If I would have kept mine, I was planning on a chain at the next belt service.

Such engines definitely needed loud pipes

There are all sorts of sets, or there used to be. I've had long arguments with a lot of people who claim that one or other manufacturer's gears are good and all the rest are crap but in my experience they are all crap, untrustworthy and I wouldn't put them in my two stroke lawnmower! As far as what pump is used? Most of those sets use the stock pump with bearings and a straight shaft. The gears used in the Hi-Cams which are also failure prone tend to shatter before they gall up and fall to pieces but this is more because the pumps don't have bearings supporting the driveshaft,the pump bodies are machined with poor tolerances and the shaft and it's attached gear flop about until the gear shatters. Engines that get a lucky good set of gears and pump seem to last a long time but Guzzi use some weird toothform that hasn't been used by anyone else since Noah was building the windlass's for the Ark! Whether that is relevant though I have no idea? If I had an early Hi-Cam though I'd piss the gears off and go to a well tensioned chain. Pete

Wouldn't call it a hijack luhbo, it's all relevant to Kane's query. And, I sure don't want to start a tire thread here. There are plenty of good tires. It's just not the usual for me to hear negative ratings for Avon, and I was curious, as I respect your input here. I have Roadsmart 3's on the Sport Nero at the moment, and like them very much. Avon's on the Tenni, though they came 'newish', but not fresh, from my parts bike, so that and the frame differences to the red frame, make a comparison unfair. First time for Avon on this bike, and they work well for me. I'm with you on the front springs, mine (red frame) work well for my needs. Does raising the rear with a longer shock create the same instability conditions as lowering the tubes in the clamps, or is that different geometry altogether? I raised the rear on my R1100s to accommodate a 180, and did see an improvement. Thanks and thanks to Kane

Just to toss a bit more clarity into the mix; Gears are one of the most difficult systems of mechanical engineering. Purpose, environment, shock, expansion, duty cycle all calculate into the mix. Tooth profile, materials, loads, lubricants. Heavily loaded gears are always steel, with heavy, high-additive lubricants. Lesser loads can be handled by lesser materials; but Aluminum is at best a poor bet in any case. High-speed gears subject to high heat demand specific lubricants; think your rear drive unit with Red Line heavy, etc. Well your engine doesn't have Red Line heavy. Your engine has motor oil, which is *not* a very good gear lube. One solution is to use very high quality, ground-profile gear teeth that don't clash. What you hear in your straight-cut gearbox is actually each tooth bashing into the next one as the gears rotate. That's a lot of abuse. To eliminate the noise, the teeth have to be finish-ground rather than hobbed (cut) to have the correct profile and finish, and the clearance needs to be within a very specific range. Aluminum is not out of the question here, with the caveat that gears have a minimum threshold for load capacity, obviously, and metals have the very odd property of disliking mating gears with the same hardness. One gear must always be harder than the other, unless both are hard enough to have zero deflection and adequate lubrication to keep them apart. So by the time you create an aluminum gear of high enough quality and finish, and mate it to a steel gear of sufficient hardness, you may as well just go with steel anyway, which is what Joe Caruso has done. I would also wager that if you could watch the cam gear on our engine with a strobe light, you'd see it flopping all over in a wobble as the camshaft deflects, which leads to edge loading the gears, multiplying the problem. I wonder if Joe has a tiny bit of camber built into the teeth to prevent that edge loading. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain, I'm tired and rambling.

My tyre brand preference is Dunlop, because they're even older then Avon, I think Mr Dunlop invented the tyre entirely himself. Beat that! No, in fact I tried these Avon 3Ds mentioned by Mikko as soon as they came on the market, alas was more then unhappy with them. They felt stiff, undecided, especially on wet roads they left me totaly on my own. This was so already when new and it just got worse. They acceptably performed on hot days only and on hot tarmac. Acceptably. The Dunlop RoadSmart III are my actual favorit because they are predictable and quick and stable right from the first meters (practically) and they keep this nice attitude over the whole distance, 9000km this is. I just feel safe on them, in every weather. About the rear shock: I had mine reworked, a different spring and an adjustable pretensioner was added. Sorry, got no details about the spring. The shop owner, a former technician from Corte&Cosso, once a name like Oehlins in the cross business, said that these ZF/Sachs shocks are of good quality and need only minor modifications to perform really well. I'm quite satisfied with this mods. Don't overtighten the rear mounting bolt (it has a safety nut, you won't loose it) and keep the eylet greased (a little WD40 from time to time) to prevent the inner steel bushings from rusting and the eyelet will last forever (as its owner, of course). The original spring was a bit stiff for single use. I think the new one is softer, even when it's shorter because of the pretensioner While you ask for suspension details: I like my bike as soft as possible (starting always from soft/open) and want the riding height with enough sag (I need 20mm additional preload in the forks for that, btw). In my eyes sag is the most important thing for relaxed road holding, especially at the rear end. Years ago riding height and sag/preload was good for a longer discussion here. Was a good thread IIRC. And sorry now for highjacking the 'My New Greeny' thread

Not a fan of alloy or alloy/composite gear sets. No doubt one of the shouty brigade will be along in a minute to tell me I'm wrong.

No to the cost and no to the noise. My bike has Joe Caruso steel gears and neither of those comments apply. Ciao

My MotoModa plate is presently a proud part of my shop decor . . .