luhbo

David, that's an interessting approach what you do now. To interprete this graph correctly resp. to draw the right conclusions I think it would be most valuable to get any "neutral" figures. I mean figures that show the design "height" of the V11. Maybe that in the manual somewhat could be found. What you mention would make a real advantage for the Oehlins shock. The bike stands at the same height as with the Sachs/WP unit, but this shock gives you 10mm more negative stroke without spoiling the laden/unladen factor. Hubert

KR green, KR black, KR silver (noble bling), and then probably the LeMans Rosso Corsa. The rest is nice, too. At least it would make small meetings if only the Classics should come. Hubert

The mentioned gold plated bullet connectors are bullet-proof , the right dimension assumed. The R/C folks shoot their electric soarers with 80 amps and more up into the sky. Thats more than you will ever have on your bike. It probably doesn't make sense for every connector or socket, but for those bearing the 30A (max) it would be a real improvement, already proofen by your (and my) melted fuse housings. Hubert

I would not close these wholes, because you can no longer address separately high-speed and low-speed damping now. You couldn't really do this before, but this means also that the inbuilt bottom valve is only capable of doing high-speed jobs. High-speed damping is necessary only for the last third of the stroke, to soften/damp the badest bumps or brake manoeuvers. You say you have both adjusting screws completely open now but still the C-damping seems to be too harsh for standard situations. For the above mentioned situations like bumps or harsh braking or both your fork now is probably absolutely inadequately set up. Maybe one could make this modification, but then he would need an additional valve to overtake the wholes' functionalities. Hubert

When your fuse once was as hot as displayed on this picture you've probably lost the game already. The fuse socket is made of cheap tinned brass and has lost now probably most of its hardness, due to to the excessive heat. This means no good conditions for contact resistance. Try to clean every part of the related surfaces, maybe some sort of agressive contact spray that removes oxide layers could help here. Or go for gold. That'll be one of my next actions. Hubert

Nogbad, you probably wont get enough cooling to an airspringed monoshock, the more as it is hidden behind the engine. They were available as duo shocks, but I never saw any on the road. They could't be refilled at gas stations because the average compressor could not deliver the necessary pressure. Actually I cannot even mind its name... Hubert

It may look like some sort of technical overkill, but I'm really thinking about replacing these cheap hot wire connectors in the 30A thread with gold plated high current connectors, available in every R/C model shop. They cost not too much but stand 80 amps and more without any problem. The interesting thing: they do so also in winter, with dust, moisture and salt. They could at all be compatible with the ones actually coming out of the regulator, so any On-Road hot swap could still be possible. Hubert

At all, reading my last posting again, this question came to my mind: how well do all these standard sag and spring settings and recommendations match with the Guzzi shaft drive. This means not only a fair amount of additional mass to be dealt with, you have also additional moments and forces and so on. Strappe for instance goes into the tyniest details with stiction and so on. This is not wrong under any aspect, but on his homepage you can see that all these theorys and practical results were applied to old-school 2-stroke leisure racers and other stuff like that. Could be that these bikes behave different to at least my Guzzi. Another point hereunder is the fact, that tuners over here use specially adjusted shocks just because of these big unsprung masses. - I ask for your input, thanks - My intention is to again relativate a bit the doctrins mentioned in this long thread. Hubert

Is it the huge unsprung mass around the Guzzi rear wheel that needs some extra damping? Could be Guzzi philosophy since 40 years now. Hubert

I bloody knew that something like that would be the answer. But you're right of course, as well as I didn't take care of that stiction I also neglected that it was just an unproofed cheap bathroom scale. Good point!

I was on our bathroom scale 10 minutes ago with one leg of the original silver fork. The readings are as follows: kg.......30.....45.....60.....75 mm.14.....15.....15.....12 My younger son Kilian, always keen on helping in bike affairs, drew a line every 15kg release. The values above are the measured distances. From 75kg down to 60 one can see already the progressive effect of the air gap, between 60kg and 30kg it moves quite exactly for 30mm. Hubert

Dynoing the bike under extreme conditions is not a good idea. The resulting correction table will be based on the extremes of the OEM correction tables, and these are likely not to be the correct ones. At least there are different ones around. I'd suggest waiting for more average wether conditions. Hubert

That's right, yes. Anyway, we talk here of perfect conditions, perfect surfaces. In reallity we don't have them unfortunately, so the engine, its parts are always moving on each other under conditions I would translate for now as something like "mixed friction". Of course everything else but good, but also not really a disaster should the red light come on one day. If it stays on, then it's a different story, but even then you have a good chance to go away with new shells only. Hubert I forgot: High revs, low gear ==> low pressure on the parts. That's what engines like most.

Ratchet, this is probably more a problem of communication than one of spring rates. First, all this bla was caused by people like you and others who say more or less pointed that riding an early V11 without substantial changes to the suspension means risking one's life. That's nonsense and again, that's all what I was complaining about. Hope I could make this clear now. The more as the KR that I own does not show any dangerous sag values or spring rates. The front is perfect (sagwise) , cut down 5 mm of the spacer and your pal Strappe would be totally happy. The rear is usable as well. It's 55 laden, but 20 unladen. This difference of 35mm is also not to bad, is it? I will rise the back to 5mm unladen next time I have the airbox out and then keep you posted. But all I will have then is a more nervous bike, but not a more sensible fork and rear shock. This missing sensibility is the main issue of these cheap elements, not the sags, and you can't cure this with springs. The more as Guzzi Pope has only one type to offer. Ahh, sorry, my fault. As mentioned before, a fanatical devotion to the pope should of course not be part of our technical "discussions". Sorry

Cold, man, cold! They came factory sealed and wrapped in Guzzi bubble tape. Probably any shop surplus or whatever, but absolutely untouched. Hmm, this Sherlock Road Geez could ofcourse think that this has to do with Nogbad. Yes, that's it: he has touched them, at least more then twice. Should he have healing hands? Beaming even through Italian bubble tape? This could explain also why he has no probs with his hooligan tool. Hubert

I'd like to correct or add one basic and important thing: the oil pump does not create the oil pressure that keeps for instance the rods "surfing" on the crank surfaces. This is a dynamic effect, purely based on the relative movement between gliding surfaces (of proper quality). The resulting pressure achieves values a hundred or thousand times higher than these poor 3 bars the pump may deliver. In fact, if the gap between the surfaces is small enough the pressure theoretically can reach infinite values! This happens every time the bearing is under load, the gap in the loaded area becomes very small with a resulting very strong but thin oil film, on the opposite side it gets bigger and the pressure falls. One should understand that the oil is not pressed between the gliding parts (as long as they move), it's very harshly sucked into these gaps or slots. So all the pump has to do is to make sure that there's always enough oil at all the important places for getting sucked away. At least two things can be derived from this: rising the oil pressure does not automatically improve the lubrication, but always costs serious power and second: a flickering oil light or even oil light on does not automatically mean a totally broken lubrication.

You then cannot use 1 to 1 any other offset maps that may be based on the correct 150mV baseline, albeit some proffessionals say the baseline is of no importance if you use a PC and so probably most PC maps have completely different baselines anyway. Will you stay in the shop and watch them tuning your bike? Hubert

Hi, you guess it, this they are and I'm still glad I had the luck to get them.

Well, the answer is no. It's all as I wrote it, no aftermarket springs, no sag problems, no need to buy aftermarket springs. Sometimes I think you're Bicyle Repair Man, having a secret identity, what? (just joking, ofcourse ) Hubert

Well done. There's a good chance you two will fall in love.

Just checked the suspension on my KR. Built in is a Tenni version of the same cheap marzocchi fork, the rear is WP supported. I found: front: static, empty 15mm, with my 86kg 30mm sag. Recomended 36 to 42. rear: static, empty 20mm, with my 86kg 55mm sag. Recomended also 36 to 42. The preload settings are not really ok, the front stands to high, but with full tank and tankbag it's adequate! The rear stands 10 or 15 mm to deep, maybe I should adjust the preload. And I have already reduced the oil volume to what I think is a save minimum. So I guess that at least on my bike the springs are 100% ok (for one person!). Probably on yours' as well. What I find to be important: I can see that at high speeds due to the missing wind shield and me sitting more in the back the front becomes very light! I guess I have not more but 15 or max.20mm negative stroke left then. Insufficient negative stroke makes the bike prone to every bad thing, mostly high speed wobble. I don't think I would really want to go this way and further reduce the laden sag/negative stroke. Better would probably be a somewhat softer spring to increase the dynamic sag in combination with a remarkable smaller airvolume. This would result in a quite progressive spring/suspension with all its advantages. (If you want to keep this Marzocchi things) I understood that I could build in stiffer springs and for compensation of this could cut down the preload tubes (cheap and easy). But what fore? As mentioned before, the fork "feels" already way to stiff, it doesn't follow bad roads as good as the old 35mm forks of the LM3 and 750S did it. This is what maybe gives you sometimes this uncertain feeling as soon as you ride over small and quick following bumps or defects on the road, especially while cornering. That's at least my experience. At last one interesting thing. Go to the mentioned Wilbers website and look what they offer you to solve these unladen-laden-sag-complex probs. They sell only one! Only one spring! The optimal one! But this you can get linear or progressive! No further diversication. They sell only these two for every motorcycle that has Moto Guzzi V11 written on its fat back, regardless what rider or riding style! (BTW, the progressive one has not only the best reputation in German mags, from the other one I've never heard so far.) So you have measured in millimeters the sags, probably at least three or four times to minimize any possible faults, full body - empty body, wet leather - dry leather, and then you go and buy the only available One-Fits-All replacement spring and then this finally makes you think you have invented something important as the wheel at least? Hubert

That's a good point! How far off are they actually, right out of the box? If someone feels he had to make the front fork 50% stiffer he probably does not look like Marlon Brando in his late years. Must have the shape of a walrus, in its middle years at least. Hubert

Life is more but black and white, and reading is more but inverse Scrabble. Hubert

C'mon guys, your discusson is useless! Nobody denies that tuning your bike makes it perform better. Only the owner can make the finetuning so that it fits his personal wishes. I'm just against such rubish that only the done tuning saved somebody's life. You can't say that. That's only what some of you may believe. You cannot proofe this, so don't spread it publically. You especially can't say that a standard V11 would risk it's owner's life. That's the only thing I was complaining about. I once knew someone (haven't seen him for years now) who started on a 08/15 Jap thing and after that bought a Pantah 750. After three weeks or so he smashed it into the landscape. His "excuse" then was that the bike was just too good! On his Yamaha he could feel when he reached the edge, the Ducati instead didn't warn him. You see, people always are looking for excuses after they failed, also when it just happened because of unadequate riding. Hubert

I understood that actually hard accelerating brings the light on. With a different location of this sucker the light would come every time you have to break. At least the engine wouldn't be under such high loads. Hubert