Skeeve

I just did the math on that: call it 86mm vs. the stock 80mm size; seems like a pretty good fit, and VDO are legendary. Please keep us posted on the specific VDO part #s you choose and obstacles overcome in this project: I suspect it will have far-reaching f/x on the older Guzzi community in general, & V11 owners in particular!

Glad you liked it; thanks for the old thread resurrection! Just goes to show what a great resource we have here for those who are new to the V11 fold!

Totally cool! NB: I wonder how leak proof it can be, & can you even see anything when the motor is running what with oil spray on the inside? For the man who has everything? Neat, but I don't see the point: it's all the other stuff besides the motor that make the modern bikes so good...

What are the chances that the announcement that they were going to apply the technology of the big block to the small block series just got garbled? IE: reinventing the 4v small block [and yes, I'm using "4v" in the correct form of valves/cylinder, not the inane 'valves/motor' method Piaggio has used with MG over the past 5 years or so... ] I'm with Pete, there doesn't seem any way to shoehorn the new, higher power big block into the small Tonti frame w/o creating a mess of headaches & structural failures. Perhaps Piaggio is trying on their own reality-distortion field now that Steve Jobs is no longer using it at Apple?

Natural evolution, most likely: noise standards putting pressure on MG for compliance, ZDDP being phased out of motor oil to keep catcons functioning. I think Pete has pretty much made clear that flat tappets function just fine, but may not make the regulation compliance goal(s) achievable going forward...

Ah Phil, you missed the joke: we 'Murricans spell & speak it funny... No matter. As for the suitability of aluminum as the material for Guzzi flywheels, we can agree to disagree. My point was that there is marginal need to even go there, since one can machine the steel flywheels down to the point where they are close to the aluminum ones in wt., but manifestly stronger to the point that one does not need to be waiting for them to explode. And the Guzzi donk does like more flywheel mass than an inline four... Your point that the use of aluminum in airplanes argues that they should be safe for use in flywheels is not pertinent either, simply because the use of aluminum in airplane frames/skin is a vastly different application. You don't see aluminum being used for flywheels in aircraft motors, nor do you see ground vehicles subjected to the extremely cautious & diligent maintenance schedules one must adhere to in aircraft. I'm just sayin' there's a logical discontinuity in your argument. Even if you do spell aluminum funny! ;D

Welcome back! We missed ya... The 1100 Sporti was the direct ancestor [father? mother?] of the V11 Sport; all you will be missing is the 6-spd gearbox, really: everything else is similar, if not quite the same! Bonus: steel tank, so no worries about alcohol in the fuel [current "hot" thread reference. ] Ride on!

Shouldn't that be "...go to waist...?" Waitaminnit: no, it's the burgers & beer that go to waist, not the training... Never miiiiind!

[emphasis added] Clearly an invalid assumption in re: the Guzzi "racing" flywheel. BTW, you misspelled "aluminum." The irony being that as Pete Roper has pointed out, the heavier flywheels are much more useful to a daily rider and don't put the strain on the rest of the components as the superlight alloy flywheel does... Ride on!

I was wondering how someone was going to get any type tank liner to stick to the nylon tank innards: that's some pretty slippery stuff. Guess we'll just have to lobby to get alcohol kept out of the gas for our bikes?

Stop trying to shoe front & rear w/ the same model of tire? Back when the BT020 was the standard fitment, everyone swapped out the front for a BT010 ASAP: front needs grip, rear needs wear. Good luck, & ride on!

Yes, isn't it shocking how much changing the graphics on the bottle costs?

Hey, welcome back!

The reason I recommended "diesel" oils is because they still have reasonable levels of ZDDP in them due to the higher peak loadings in a diesel vs. spark-ignition motor. MCN [American version] did an oil test sometime in the past decade where the Rotella [non-synth] version came out tops in key areas [ash content, ZDDP, etc.] and the synth version has performed even better in any bike I've run it in [longer b4 the shifting gets clunky, in shared-oil x-mission bikes...] The reason diesel oils can get away w/ still putting in the ZDDP is they all display "Not to be used in pollution controlled vehicles" on the warning label. And WalMart carries them, unlike special motorcycle lube, which wouldn't sell in high enough quantities to interest them.

I would start by reading this "sticky" thread on the 24/7 forum. Good point OrangeOkie, but what the hell is that sticky doing on the top of 24/7 instead of Technical Topics? Just doesn't make any sense at all... [nerd]

Yeah, that... There's a thread back a few years that had photos of the MR, FBF & stock slugs side by side, along with other things [fairly long thread, punctuated by DLaing's & Ratchethack's usual bickering], but the net result was a clear indication that Mike Rich had done his homework to resolve the inadequacies of the stock equipment wrt the squish band and concentrating the fuel-air mixture to reduce ping; quite the opposite in fact of the FBF pistons [which were described as "ping-o-matics" from sources who had used them.] I'd be ordering a set if I hadn't already done so. Still tempted to order some, just in case I ever get another V11...

Diesel oils sold in gallon jugs @ Deathstar [aka "WalMart."] Shell Rotella-T Synth is now in its 6th gen formulation, & has been a stellar performer from when the 1st formulation hit the ground in any motorcycle that shares its motor oil w/ the gearbox [which really tells you when to change: when the shifting shifts from slick to notchy, it's time for a change.] Diesel oils don't have any of that "friction modified" nonsense on the rocker for the API rating, so they're still o.k. in flat tappet applications. Any oil that has that "friction modified" rocker, shun for your Guzzi [or any other air-cooled motor.]

Not so much "higher compression" as "delivering the true compression Guzzi advertised." The stock Guzzi V11 pistons are unchanged from the "Spot/Sporti" mid-90s products. The thing is, Guzzi redesigned the heads slightly in the intervening years for the V11 models, w/o making the necessary changes to the pistons to properly match them to the new V11 combustion chamber design. This is Mike Rich's contention, & photographic & anecdotal evidence over the years seems to substantiate his position. Just as the antiquated combustion chamber design hampers the power output of the small-blocks, so too for the big block Guzzis [altho' for vastly different reasons, & to a lesser degree than in the SB Guzzis...] Mike Rich pistons have been shown to dramatically decrease pinging complaints, altho' he does not come out & say you can run anything less than premium fuel. But at least you can apparently get by on premium pump gas, w/o having to carry around a supply of 100LL avgas to avoid pinging like a WWII movie sonarman... BTW, I'm the SOB who bought his last set October of last year. [still haven't gotten 'round to installing them, but I wanted to snag'em before the price went up. Again. Shoulda snagged some back when they were only $300/pr! But that gives you an idea of how slow a mover these things are, if people are only now discovering that he's out of stock. So we should probably organize a big group buy so that he'll get a bunch of extras made, since this will probably be the last hurrah for V11 owners who are serious about keeping their Guzzis long term...

It has been attempted in the past. The stock, under-tranny x-over is more a "pre-muffler" than a true cross-over: the volume is just too dang large, so all the exhaust gases come chonkin' down the headers at high speed, hit that big open space & come to a halt, then meander down the extremely restrictive stock mufflers based upon the higher pressure in the pre-muffler bit & pressure pulses from the exhaust hammering those stagnant gases further down stream. [Yes, this is a bit of hyperbole, but play along for a bit, it gets better. ] If you open the stock x-over & pull out the central metal sponge space filler, you make the description above even more accurate, spoiling performance. Dyno tests have shown that the Stucchi x-over [which is designed to be a true x-over] has a slight improvement in the low-rpm hole in the power band, and also a slight improvement in top end power, with a raspier exhaust note. The Mycroft Holmes [sorry, forget the name, but it's the other big alt. to the Stucchi, and starts w/ an "M"] x-over has almost no actual gas x-fer, & is more of a balance pipe [meaning sonic & pressure sharing, but no real joining of flow], does a better job of filling in the low-rpm hole but loses power on top in comparison to the stocker. Ultimately, it has been clearly demonstrated that: 1) Dr. John did a very good job of coming up with a much more cosmetically appealing, but still quite adequate performing, alternative to the old "colostomy bag" x-over on the mid-90s Spot, Sporti & Daytona x-over. 2) If you want all out power or a more threatening exhaust note, you buy the Stucchi. 3) If you want to fit a centerstand or a more compliant throttle in traffic or just noodling around, you get the Myocardial infarction x-over [still haven't remembered the correct name... ] 4) It is ultimately pointless to mess around with the stock exhaust parts when pursuing performance enhancement: they were just designed too dang well upon European "don't mess with city hall" principles. Ride on!

I think you meant to address that to Splicer...

BZZZT! Nice try, but unfortunately, incorrect. The removal of lead from fuel revealed a need for different valve seat material, but that was a by-product that had never been accounted for, not the reason lead was added to fuel. And by "lead," I'm talking about the octane booster tetra-ethyl lead [hence, the nickname "ethyl" for high octane gas, vs. "regular" for the standard grade.] And modern octane boosters don't work anywhere near as well as a shot of avgas 100LL ["Low Lead" here is a relative term: 100LL has much more TE-lead in it than any road-going version of gasoline ever had...] All of which is great for those of us w/ Guzzi's w/o a cat in the pipe.

Where did they find him a pump w/ leaded gas for his vintage Guzzi? Yeah, I know it's bad for the environment, but nothing works to power those old motors like the fuel it was designed to run on...

Doubtful. They're an attempt at the same color, but AFAIK, the reported paint codes for the Tenni & the GriSEo are from two different manufacturers, so they can't really be exactly the same, ifyaknowwhatImean? Infinite variation, within a narrow range of inputs: Tennis & GriSEos are painted 'fractal green'!

That's the test port: supposedly, there's a fitting that could be plugged into that port to test the ecu & verify it was working properly, download fault codes, etc. Even if you *could* plug in a lambda probe to your 15M, you wouldn't want to. There's better ways to twiddle the numbers for your alpha-N injection.

The Black Dog et him up & spit out his corpse.