Skeeve

You get a Sargent seat for an '02 V11 Sport by taking your seat off, sending it to Sargent, and they send it back to you as a Sargent seat. Fairly simple, really. Corbin has lost their rep [rested on their laurels for decades] as a good seat supplier unless you take your bike to their factory and have them build the seat for you right there so you can test it out & get immediate fixes to it until it meets w/ your satisfaction. Apparently, they will do good work when under scrutiny that way. [No dog in this fight, just relaying the info I've seen online from multiple sources.] Bill Mayer saddles will supposedly make you the best seat you will ever want to sit on, but they're built for sitting on, not looking at: I've seen a couple & they're a bit of an eyeful. Kind of like marrying a fatty 'cause she's such a good cook, I guess? Worse ways to go. And then of course, there's our long-time standby for Guzzi saddles, Rich Maund. [if he's still doing them? Haven't heard much from him in a few years...]

Thanks for linking to that interview: that was a fabulous read! The translation to English was a little fractured at times: it took me awhile to figure out that when they referred to "carters" they meant the engine cases, but all part of the fun, truly! What a wonderful gift for the author, to have been given the opportunity to interview such a vital and delightful historical personage. Color me jealous! As for what I'd like to see, I'm w/ Ing. Carcano: Guzzi desperately needs to do something new! If Piaggio wants to keep Guzzi as their "touring" line, then a compact diesel makes excellent sense. Regadless of whether diesel or petrol powered, it needs to be blown: Guzzi is no longer going to be getting involved in racing, so the post '39 ban on supercharging has no bearing on them anyway: motorcycles need to be fuel-efficient if nothing else or hybrid electric cars will eventually overwhelm them, so the route forward requires forced induction as a means of balancing power with fuel efficiency. In the mean time, I'll just have to content myself w/ tooling along on Ing. Carcano's brainchild...

Send it out for lightening? I forget if it is Todd Eagen or his former partner Ed Milich who still does this work, but one or the other has a fairly comprehensive lightening program for the 2winpl8 that gets it down close to the mass of the single plater w/o turning it into a ticking time bomb like the single platers seem to be.

Lots of great music on this thread, seems like 90% of it would get an [AOL]Me too![/AOL] out of me. In a perfect world I'd still look like I did 20 years ago and Melody Gardot would be riding pillion with me. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_qphknagXqA

WRT the MR pistons: yes. There's a long thread about it from back around 2004? or 2005? maybe: the basics of it are this: Guzzi/Aprillia redesigned the combustion chamber on the V11 heads vs. the shape used in the 1064 motor used in the Spot/Sporti v11s, but apparently funds ran out or someone forgot to update the piston to match, & they kept on w/ the same pistons as before, so there was a mis-match in the squish zone, leading to all sorts of poor combustion issues, along with lower compression than was actually claimed by the factory. Mike Rish noticed this disparity, and came up with a set of pistons to better match the V11 combustion chamber [basically, finished the job the factory left undone.] So they actually produce the 10.5:1 CR the factory claims for the V11 motors, and do so by eliminating the "dead zones" of trapped, unburnt gases out at the perimeter of the squish zone which leads to lower emissions, better fuel economy & reduced pinging from a more turbulent combustion chamber at peak compression. No V11 motor came w/ dual plugs. Dual plugging of V11 motors is more complicated than the dual-plugging of the old round-head twins because of a rerouting of oil passages with the square-head redesign. It can be done, but hardly anyone has bothered due to the added expense and difficulty of reprogramming the electronic ignition [until recently] vs. the comparative ease of changing advance in a distributor. The original Brevona [1100 Breva w/ 2v heads] had dual plugs, & up to a certain engine s/n [iirc, the changeover was made below the 25000 production number?] had the same oil return locations as the V11 cases. The oil returns were changed on the later cases in preparation for the jump to the 1200 2v motor. This was per the Guzzi bible [which oddly enough, is not affiliated in any way w/ Piaggio or Guzzi, but compiled by our fine friends @ Moto Int'l. in Seattle...] So conceivably, the dual-plug heads off a sufficiently low s/n Brevona should drop right onto the V11 cylinders. Don't forget to get the twin-output coils to replace the single coils on your V11 while you're at it...

Looked into this question some years ago. The "8deg" # that has been bounced around in this thread comes from the difference btw the 37deg max advance on a stock V11 and the 29deg quoted by someone who had dual-plugged a v11 Sporti, iirc [Carl Allison mebbe?] Again, this is all "iirc," & you know how that goes, I've got an advanced case of CRS... Anyway, the reduction at max advance wouldn't apply down around idle, so you can't reduce the map everywhere by that same amount. For the built in advance, it would probably be worthwhile to base it upon the same amount of starting advance from say, a small displacement 4-valve engine w/ centrally located spark, & see how it idles [smoothly or not?] Take a temp reading of the exhaust headers before the changes for a baseline comparison after: the readings should remain the same. If the exhaust is cooler, the timing is too advanced & too much heat is being retained in the head; if the pipes are hotter, the timing is too retarded & too much heat is being generated by the gases after they exit the cylinder.

Yeah, that was me. If your seat latch is real bugger to turn w/ the key and your fast idle lever keeps backing off while the bike is idling on the sidestand, they got the springs switched at the factory. That's my theory and I'm sticking with it, esp. since once I swapped them the seat is fairly easy to pop on & off and the fast idle stays set...

Photobucket? I haven't logged in recently, I suppose I should go check my account to make certain things are still there...

IIRC, Clevite makes the plain bearing shells for just about every ICE that people want to go fast & last. Guzzi probably buys their bearing shells from them in the 1st place, or if not, from some supplier who advertises their product as "just as good as Clevite's." Why not go to the source & find out if they make a bearing shell that's going to fit your reground crank? Best o' luck, & hoping it's going to be a happy 2015 for you!

I'm still here, just not very active these days. Nice to know you're still lurking, Carl! Thanks again for all the work on the wiring diagrams!

The utterly ridiculous price on the official Guzzi part is why the Harley-Davidson tps is used as a substitute: a few years ago they were ~ $60 for the part, vs. Guzzi's part at 3x as much or more. The only difference is a slightly faster "ramp" on the H-D part [which didn't seem to cause any problems in reports from those using them.] These are electro-mechanical parts, so they do eventually wear out. WRT the pod filters: tests by serious go-fast people have conclusively determined that the stock airbox with the top converted into a sort of "retaining ring" for the filter element performs better than pod filters at all throttle regimes, & makes more power at WFO. Pod filters are strictly a "looks good" feature for that classic "motorcycle you can see thru" appearance, as opposed to modern, densely-packaged "opaque" motorcycles. I understand that the situation in Venezuela may alter things, but the official word on the stock Sachs shock is that it is non-rebuildable [or at least, not worth doing so] and moreover, some iterations are prone to failure at the "eye" [which would allow the rear end to collapse & the shock to possibly jam against the rear wheel if it happened at speed.] The best advice it to replace it with one of the several aftermarket options [Penske, Hagon, Ohlins if you're wealthy] once the stocker is kaput [as yours is.] Alternatively, someone else who's already upgraded may have a stocker that's still usable and would be willing to give it to you for the cost of shipping? Wish I knew of some other bike that used a similar size, but like other esoteric vehicles, I think our Guzzis are a bit off the beaten track of "most bikes" equipment. ;-)

The latter # will of course depend upon the former. Kind of hard to commit until we know if the price is competitive: there's several suspension options out there these days; Ohlins no longer has a near monopoly on performance suspension supply like they did 15 years ago.

You can console yourself that chin spoilers are generally cosmetic and usually INCREASE drag, making the bike slower. Better off without!

Well, do you want the short version or the long? Short version: those other bikes you mention are 4v/cyl engines with the sparkplug in the center; Guzzis are 2v/cyl w/ the plug off to the side. They're also much newer designs: our beloved V11s are essentially a couple of cylinders whacked off a WW2-era aircraft radial, without all the redundant/safety systems. Long version: go check out Harry Ricardo's _The High Speed Internal Combustion Engine_: it's only 90 years old at this point, & clearly explains the answers to all your questions. Not so much. It may add enough fuel to reduce the tendency to knock, but then your mileage will go to . As already pointed out above, the best way to cure knocking is to adjust timing advance [failing of course, proper combustion chamber design in the 1st place, as per Ricardo! ]

That's because they don't do anything to benefit induction: they're there exclusively to minimize intake noise. There is no ram air f/x from these things. The only Guzzis w/ ram air intakes were the Daytonas & Spot/Sporti. The ram air was tested at one point & found to only increase output by something like 1/2 horsepower [i forget the exact conditions; it's in Greg Field's [u]Guzzi Big Twins[/u] book, as I recall.] Bad. Not really, altho' they certainly don't help. The were put on to keep induction noise trapped inside the airbox so the bike could pass arbitrary governmental noise standards be legally imported & sold here. Lose it & then look up "airbox mods" here in V11LM to see what you need to do next to unleash the mighty V11 that is currently half-strangled...

It has two purposes: 1st: it helps reduce the "hole" in the powerband @ ~3500 rpm. [Note I wrote "reduce" not "eliminate."] The reality is that it can't do much here anyway, & a lot of the Guzzi experts [Greg Field, et al] who'd been around before it was introduced hold unequivocally that it does so little in this regard that it isn't worth the headaches involved. 2nd [& I think more important wrt its original adoption by the factory]: it replicates the look of the [welded in] x-over in the exhaust of the original LeMans. The front x-over seems to be a source of on-going problems, and the addition of an aftermarket rear x-over and remapping seems to eliminate any need for it.

Not so much the economy as the loss of several voluble members. I was busy w/ some family problems; Ratchethack got kicked off the forum; Pete Roper got fed up with nitwits over on WG forums, started posting here more often & ran into some similar moronic BS here & swore off posting online altogether for awhile (he's back on WG forum again under a pseudonym to throw off the trolls, but unfortunately no longer checks in here much at all. ); DLaing (who used to excel at yanking RH's chain) pretty much left after RH got the boot. So yeah, it was dullsville around here for a time. Glad you stuck it out!

You need to push in slightly & turn, iirc. Just inserting the key & twisting doesn't do the trick.

Put some hi-temp anti-seize on the threads for the header clamps: it will help getting the correct torque reading & helps to prevent loosening from the 'ratcheting' of dry threads during heat cycling.

It would in fact appear that you've got a Will Creedon chip in there. Either that or someone w/ a Dymo labeler & an intent to convince folks that the bike is something other than what it really is... Try doing a tuneup & properly setting the injector bodies, and see how things go from there. Check for air leaks around the [old] intake rubber & loose exhaust connections: those can affect the fuel mix too. Best o' luck!

Well that sure puts a spin on things! a 2M bike, but with all the next generation modifications? Well sh^$*%t! I guess my bike isn't the true first '03+ featured bike! Do you mind posting some photos? Yea, I guess I am trying to pin down both things...I assumed the '03 spec started with my frame, that would be February of 2003. I also would like to know if there is a fixed time period for the MY switch over, regardless of feature set. This is getting more complicated the further I get down the Italian rabbit hole! That does make a lot of sense, and does jive with the production of the 4M111155 bike I mentioned above (September '03 build month). But I don't know if I can continue down this path, knowing that serial production at Mandello Lario isn't true serial production! Italians are so passionate about things, why not solid record keeping!!!! I am sure the Aprilia (then Piaggio) ownership changes around this time didn't help the matter.... Aprillia assumed ownership ~ '99; Piaggio ~ '05. The only thing going on at that time was Aprillia thrashing around trying to stave off bankruptcy after having spent too much $$ in MotoGP trying to compete with much larger companies like Honda, et al while their main income stream of scooter sales was being systematically taken over by China. As for why Italians can't be passionate about bookkeeping, as I can say is that accounting isn't about artistic creation [when done correctly. "Creative accounting" has a long & storied history of getting its practitioners arrested and/or dead... ] As for continuing down this path, I agree that it is a topic best left undisturbed!

Given that most of southern Europe seems to take the month of August off, I'm going to suggest that is the MY cutoff. Since the factory [at that time, at least] built bikes in batches, they probably built the 2003 V11s late [after switching over from Calis or what not] and the 2004 V11s early, directly after the hiatus, to save themselves from having to switch the production line again. It's a working theory, at least.

You might want to see if Mike Rich is going to do another run of his pistons, since he already went to the work of designing them to correctly match up w/ the V11 combustion chamber to eliminate pinging...

Shucks! Just read your thread. Only thing I can think of off the top of my head that would destroy your cam & tappets like that is the V11 being a flat-tappet engine that requires a decent amount of ZDDP in the oil. If someone ever changed the oil using some of the "friction modified" low wt. automotive oils suited only to post-'95 automobiles, well, might that have done it in over time? Edit: just saw your post wrt the early life of the motor when you were in SFO & realized that w/o a Roper plate, normal acceleration from a stop up some of those steep grades would have been enough to create occasional, temporary oil starvation from an uncovered pickup. Bummed that you deep-sixed the bike so fast: I understand that you might have just wanted to put yourself out of misery from staring at it, but suspect you could have made a better deal if you hadn't rushed... Hope I'm wrong, for your sake! So, is your next bike going to be a shiny new Stelvio w/ the tasty QV engine?

Cost of the raw materials [stainless steel $, titanium $$] are expen$ive, and in a non-production format [Guzzi's "boutique" volumes of production being about the bare minimum for realizing reasonable costs] highly labor-intensive. Man hours cost money, outside of places like India or China [which is why so much production has shifted overseas.] As a for instance, over on the Pacific Coast Yahoo group, somebody in an FSU country [ukraine maybe?] made a nifty rear rack [Hondaline made a vestigial passenger backrest for the PC800 once, loooong out of production, but never a luggage rack.] Cost was unbelievably reasonable, since his asking price + shipping from overseas would still have put it about 1/2 the cost of what you would expect to pay for a similar item of U.S. manufacture. So, short of rolling your own [& essentially, not charging for your own time], anything like exhausts or racks that's essentially ALL man-hours (plus a certain baseline of materials costs) is going to cost some ducats...