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Earlier this year I foolishly sold my 2003 LeMans. I've regretted it. I offered to buy it back but the new owner declined. When a 2002 Champagne LeMans came along, I jumped. The color has grown on me over the years. It's a 1 year color and I think it makes an elegant GT bike. Especially with some carbon detailing. I want to repaint the tank as it is faded and stained by gasoline overflow. I can have my paint store attempt to match, but if anyone has a better suggestion please let me know. Or perhaps someone has a champagne tank they would part with. (the pic is not my bike .....yet) Mike

depends on the design I think. Two separate legs?- I agree w/docc. If fabbing a one piece "plate" (with a contoured center portion removed) I'd think that was strong enough to resist the side to side.

I recall a fabricator talking me out of a "rib" (or a "web") and the bracket failed. At a bad time (as always). It wasn't a V11 canister hanger, but if the question is, "Add a rib?" You have my yes. Overkill? Better than underkilled . . .

I've never had slow cranking on my bike, mainly because I am too soft to go out in the cold. But I checked what Shorai had to say about cold starting. They say: "If starting at 5C, headlights on for 30 seconds will help wake the battery and increase cranking performance. If at -17C, leave the lights on for 4~5 minutes before cranking. The result will be a better first crank, and longer battery life. If the engine fails to start on first crank, that first crank has warmed the battery, and the second attempt will be much stronger." So Phil makes a good point.

1) Buy beer, invite friends: (photo courtesy of Nick, 2016 South'n Spine Raid) Or, 2) Use The Goof-Proofed Tank-on Method: Helps if the tank is empty, and tighten a little at a time.

Yesterday I looked on this excellent forum for any ideas that may explain poor cranking and starter performance that rather suddenly appeared when I tried starting in the morning after a fairly cold night (around 6deg.C 43F) a few weeks ago. I first assumed that, after 5 seasons my LiPO battery was starting to age and with the cold and higher oil viscosity that this was the problem so I bought a new battery. The effect seemed to be temperature related; always being a problem when cold starting. The new battery didn't cure the problem; hence my looking at the forum. There didn't seem to be a dedicated topic focused on exactly this problem, hence this new specific topic, but by various searches i did find a few ideas, even one that reported a similar problem because they had put in 20W-40 oil rather than the recommended 5W-40 oil and this became a problem on a cold day. In fact I made a list of all the possible options and there are lots, (battery, starter, starter contactor, connections etc. including the possibility of the magnets becoming demagnetised (on a Ferrari forum), but obviously the most likely was a poor connection so I stripped down all the connections between battery and starter, including the heavy duty earth cable that fixes to the gearbox casing, cleaned them, added corrosion protective grease and reattached but really didn't see anything that gave me the slightest concern. However, on dismantling I did take off the insulated spade terminal that supplies the voltage to the starter contactor and it didn't feel a tight push-on. I used pliers to compress the jaws of the female insulated terminal, cleaned up the spade that emerges from the starter contactor next to the large +ve starter terminal and reattached. Problem solved! Obviously high resistance to the contactor coil can cause the contactor to pull in rather weakly, leading to high resistance in the main starter contacts and a weak start. I am putting this experience out just in case anyone has a similar problem. It might be useful for others to add their own experiences associated with solving the problem of the starter motor working but having difficulty in cranking the engine as quickly as normal.

something to consider for your tail tidy. easy fab, I have more details.

Thanks for some good suggestions that I'm sure will be helpful to me and any others who have this specific problem. Thanks

One cause of slow cranking is a bad ground connection. If the ground is not making good contact the return current from the starter finds its way back to the battery via the small ground wire from the Voltage regulator. Too much of this and the wire becomes red hot melting through and shorting to other wires in the loom. Make sure the main ground is connected to a gearbox bolt and not just the seat release lock. The battery terminals should be cleaned and protected with Vaseline. Measure the Voltage across the starter terminals while cranking (should be at least 10V) Battery Positive to Starter Positive (the battery terminal not the wire lug) (<1V) Battery Negative to chassis (as above) (<0.5V) Battery Positive to Negative while cranking (should be at least 10V) Of course the LiPo batteries are known for weak output when cold.

Do you warm the battery before you try to start your bike in cold conditions? With a LiPo battery when the ambient temps drop you must turn the headlight on for 30 seconds or so before attempting to start to warm the battery. Ciao

Its easy to fabricate muffler hangers with simple hand tools from 5mm aluminium plate. Better than ruining a good set of standard hangers by chopping off the peg mounts. Ciao

Why in gods name would you want to do that. You've just figured out Guzzidiag and want to go backwards to rubbish like a PC3! Ciao

Load the Meinolf map. It fixed mine. No stumble or coughing. Don't screw with the PClll.

Completed this following the tutorial and it has made a huge difference. TPS was 80mv. A little hard to set exactly at 157 due to the throttle not settling in exactly the same position. Settled on a consistent closing of the throttle and not snapping it closed hard to set the TPS. Never having dabbled with Guaai diag or tuner pro.....hell after 15 years of doing all my mechanical maintenance on Ducatis, Aprilia's and Triumphs, this is the first time I have ventured into the fueling adjustments and it was EASY! Lambda has now been turned off which changed the CO from -128 to "0" so left that as is. Balance was out a bit using the Motion Pro Balance tubes. Might now hook up the PCIII and get it on the dyno. Haven't bothered up to now due to the Lambda control. The bike now idles steadily where it was up and down with an occasional miss which i thought might have been a faulty/dirty crank position sensor. The tune fixed that. Also drastically reduced the constant throttle cough at 2-3k rpm around town. Only had this happen once so far. Now I can use the knowledge to balance the TB's on the ST. Great wright up!

Thanks Phil! Tank arrived safely in California! Working with shop here to get it coated inside and then swapped onto the Rossa Corsa! G’day friend!

Bearings out,, about ten or twelve slaps each. No drama.

Here in Lower Middle Mule Town there is a scale of difficulty for jobs like "cold pressing" (*bending*) delicate Italian parts of unknown metallurgy: 1) Vice and a beer. 2) Vice, beer(s), hammer(s) 3) Vice, heat, hammers, friends, beers. 4) Vice, heat, hammers, moonshine, friends, beers, moonshine, cheaterbars, >step5: 5) Next morning: order new parts; Empirical evidence prevails!