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Has anyone else ever wished Guzzi made storage pods in the big empty space on the inside of both fairings? I swear you could get nearly a half gallon of storage on both sides and still have plenty of clearance for the fork rotation. So just curious if anyone in the past 20 years has made an attempt at having something custom made. I'm imaging how nice it would be to carry my fix a flat kit with air pump on one side, and sunglasses/shield spray and cloth on the other side. All without ruining the beautiful lines of the bike like tank bags do.

Sadly, Piaggio/MG heard the "Italian Harley" reference and took it to heart. Why not hire Erik Buell for some quick chassis R&D? I heard he's available... Would not be the first Yank they have leaned on. Regarding Piaggio, it seems that some of their scooter mindset has crept in. Did Honda dispose of all the tooling for the Honda CX650? That seems to have been a better, more advanced and emissions friendly design (in 1983) than the current small-blocks are. Harley has had to cave on liquid cooling (if the roof has not caved in, that is) and I suppose that a "Water Guzzi" is in the future. Pondering this, the V11 is essentially an air-cooled slice off a 1965 Chrysler hemi. Hard to meet Euro 3,4 or 5 emissions with a somewhat refined 1930s radial aircraft engine combustion chamber. Band Aids on the intake and exhaust (F.I. and Catalyst) are only crutching for the antiquated engine itself. Speaking of which, were they separated at birth? Guzzi V11 Chrysler 426 "Elephant" hemi

Don't know if the headlight buckets are the same, but I have swapped out all lights on my '04 Ballabio for LED units. If it matters, the bucket is plastic and has the QD harness which attaches at the bottom rear of the recess intended for the OEM H4 bulb and harness. The "bulb" is a unit from Infitary (eBay). It has Philips ZES diodes, a cooling fan and the separate driver. I wrapped the driver in some thin closed cell foam to prevent it from rattling. Many LED 9003/H4 units will have provision for rotating the unit to achieve the beam pattern that suits you. The taillight is an LED unit from Clear Alternatives and came with the bike. As to signals, I used "iBrightstar" 7507 (BAU15S) units with projector lenses in front. About $17/pair on Amazon. Much brighter and more focused light than the incandescent bulbs. In the rear I have some generic projector lens LED units that seem roughly equivalent to those in from but cost considerably less. Time will tell on this. To prevent hyper flash, I bought a two-pin adjustable flash rate LED flasher unit on eBay. When I have the gauge cluster apart, I also have some LED T5 units for the warning lights and gauge illumination. Would like to change the signal indicator lights to yellow from the green that MG thought made sense... Headlight: https://smile.amazon.com/INFITARY-Headlight-Headlamp-10000LM-Warranty/dp/B07V36DVLB/ref=sr_1_40?dchild=1&keywords=9003+led&qid=1593627161&sr=8-40 Signals: https://smile.amazon.com/iBrightstar-Newest-Bright-Projector-replacement/dp/B075Q9RGZW/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=ibrightstar+7507&qid=1593626377&sr=8-1

Maybe I can have a look inside with my Boroscope if I get the time. Ciao

I have a 2003 Lemans and was wondering if anyone has replaced their stock headlight with a newer brighter LED one? Just trying to find what options work with the stock fairing and bucket and what doesn't. Thanks

If the reflector housing is the standard 7" unit with the three indexing tabs around the perimeter, it "should" drop right in. Knowing MG, they may have used some obscure proprietary unit. I guess one would have to compare the LM unit to a standard 7" automotive sealed beam as to the attaching/indexing points for compatibility. As bright as we oldsters thought H4 halogen units were back in the day, LED is a world apart as well as a blessing for bikes which have marginal charging systems.

It appears that Guzzi under the auspices of Piaggio has very limited R&D funding and a loss of sense of direction post V11 and MGS-01. Some of the ensuing small block bikes have a small bit of the old LeMans flair, but certainly not the performance. The large block entries have been a styling disaster as well as technically disappointing at times. It may be that the air cooled big cylinder has become an anachronism in the modern emissions world. If water cooling is now technically mandatory for good performance, then the reason for the traditional MG layout goes away (two jugs sticking out in the breeze at a 90 degree included angle that provides good primary balance). And seeing the problems that have occurred in both the MG and airhead BMW drive lines, I'm not convinced of the supposed maintenance ease of a shaft versus chain final drive (a chain and sprockets of decent metallurgy and fully enclosed by an easily removable thin metal or plastic envelope would likely last nearly as long as a shaft drive and certainly be cheaper to manufacture and easier to service). Of course, a big twin with a chain final drive is the domain of Ducati, on which MG is unlikely to trespass. I'd like to believe that MG will still come out with a new, large capacity sport bike in the spirit of the LeMans, V11 and MGS-01, but I sense that they don't have it in them any more, alas.

Good point, po18guy makes, that the early steel buckets like mine and KINDOY/Scud's Greenie differ from the later plastic buckets. "V11 Sport" throughout the years used the fork mounted steel Bosch unit.

I did see a thread about this, but it was back in 2013. Also, any issue with running LED lights with the stock electrical. For example, if I want to update the turn signals, brake, and headlights.

Or MG can do it cheap with parts they already have going with a V7 chassis, a V85tt tuned for more power (twin throttlebody maybe. ) and some cooler components and different bodywork than the V7 Racer... 🤔

I am pretty sure there is nothing inside you can't guess by looking at the outside. I would bet if you rolled a golf ball down the pipe (or whatever size ball would fit) it would roll right through the crossover. If you held the crossover at the right angle it would go straight through. But if you held it at a different angle you could probably get the ball to fall out the other pipe. There is surely no baffling or anything else in that crossover. It is basically two pipes weld together so that they cross in an X pattern. The stock crossover is welded up of stamped steel and has a baffle of sorts in it. But this one looks to be made better and likely flows better.

This I actually really like. Pity it needs a custom chassis to work. Ciao

Hey Docc & anyone else that happens to read this, please take what I say on this computer stuff with a grain of salt, because by no means do I have a firm grasp on it, I'm definitely in over my head on a wing and a prayer,lol. I "think" the recommended best practice now with guzzidiag is to disregard loading the FTDI driver and load the reader driver instead to drive the chip. I "think" the reason for the change was because if you load the FTDI driver first and then later on, try to load the guzzidiag reader driver, there will be a conflict and problems. By loading the guzzidiag reader driver instead of the FTDI driver, it drives the chip and you preclude any future driver conflicts. fwiw Kelly

^^^^Yeah, when the old farts complain about their wrists and neck hurting as they age, I always say.. "Hit the gym. Build your core strength." It put me back on sport bikes when I was 60, and I still ride em.. er, *several* years later.

It says "05/11/2015" on the page? PS: the page has not been updated since 30 Nov 16. They must be very busy developing new engines...

Still listening to Rush again and again since Neil´s passing.

I finally got around to looking at messages, emails, and PayPal. Most have paid already. Some have over paid. (!) Don't worry though.. I won't spend it on something frivolous.. it will go straight to beer. Thanks, again!