Skeeve

Take off the rear hugger; the compliance sticker is on the swingarm, & is hidden by the hugger [from prior thread.] Does your bike have >7500 miles on it? Then its a non-issue; as a used vehicle first registered in another state, they can't say "boo" to your bringing it in! Used to be CA charged a $300 fee to reg. out of state vehicles, but someone took the state to court & the state lost, but they can still refuse if you have less than 7500 miles, 'cause they consider that "new," so it has to meet all the CA requirements. Spin the odo up over 7500 miles & all your troubles will disappear. Don't let the govt. drones at the DMV give you the runaround; they usually don't know their own regulations any better than you do! If at first you don't succeed, try a different DMV, or the same one at a different time of day/week. You might get someone else who has a clue...

What an excellent idea! I think you deserve a bodge point for that! OTOH, I don't know where one gets gasket paper in 8.5x11" size sheets stateside...

Having ridden both an MP3 & a Spyder, I'd rather ride the MP3 for handling, the Spyder for profiling. You can't lane-split on a Spyder 'cause it's as wide as a (small) car, the MP3 isn't any wider than a bike w/ saddlebags, so as long as traffic doesn't get too tight, it's a goer. And way more fun to drive than the Spyder, 'cause the MP3 still leans. The Spyder, as might be expected, handles more like a snowmobile or a quad than anything else. Those are fine on soft surfaces, but kinda sucky on the street, which is why Bombardier had to put in all sorts of electrical gee-whiz'ery in the Spyder to shut down the fun before you can wrack it up in the turns. I do like the front trunk on the Spyder; the fine folks at Bombardier certainly did their homework. I'd rather just buy a used Miata for the same money as the Spyder tho'; more utils per $. I sure would like to license the rights to the MP3 front end from Piaggio & make one right; trim the costs, get the wheel sizes & motovator unit right, & that thing could be a real world changer. Right now it's too expen$ive and their modern engineers aren't as good as Ing. D'Ascanio at real world decisions.

Keep going east. Fly to Bangkok, stay awhile. Fly to the Phillipines, Hong Kong, Japan, Oz, Tahiti, Hawaii, ConUS, Spain (which should be far enough south & west that it's not affected by airport shutdowns.) Take a nice break at each stop. From Spain, you can catch the train. Be aware, it rarely rains on the plains in Spain. Charge it all to the Icelandic govt. for their failure to adequately control their atmospheric emissions. Al Bore, er, Gore must be bald about now from pulling his hair out over all the greenhouse gases this volcano is emitting: after all, one eruption dwarfs all of mankind's worldwide output & cocks his "Earth in the Balance" theory on its head.

I hate the "I'm styled like an SUV but my fenders are too close to the wheels to fit knobbies" treatment of the Gilera Fuoco; I'd stick w/ the MP3 400 for the original & still better MP3 looks & functionality [the 500 loses the through the seat storage on the 250 & 400, iirc.] The 250 is a gutless puke ridden two-up, but otherwise fun & fine for thrashing through traffic. If Piaggio could just get the pricing right [i can buy a new Kia that will seat 2 adults + 2 midgets for less than the 500, [b]and[/b] keep them all dry in the rain! ] I'd jump on the 400 in a heartbeat; if Piaggio could bring the 250 for Ride on!

"Ruckus Zbar?" Do you mean the handlebar from a Honda Ruckus scooter, or something else? Big Ruck or small one, if the former? [Not familiar enough with them to know if the big Ruckus & the original share a common part in the handlebar...] Looks like you still need to trim some of the length of the bar, but other than that, it looks like you've got a good start on mitigating the "crouch."

Is that supposed to be gold-on-silver, or gold-on-white? Kind of hard to tell whether you're trying to make the entire bike match the cans, or the photochop just came thru in a weird limbo on my screen. Not sure if I like it, either way, but I will say this: motorcycles need visibility! The last thing you want to do is paint your bike some neutral color: after years of observation, I've determined that the last color you'd want for a bike is the champagne [metallic beige] color of the '02 LeMans - no matter how nice it looks standing alone on the sidestand in your garage, the plain truth is that it's doggone near invisible to the BDCs out there; that's why they keep crashing their Accords & Camrys that are all the same color. They just don't see the other car, nor are they seen. And a bike is at an even worse disadvantage, 'cause even if it's painted bright red, they'll still ignore it because of its size. Conspicuity should be your watchword.

Any word as to which Buell model(s) had the same amber lens as our V11s? I know that at least some of their bikes used clear lenses w/ colored bulbs; I'd rather not have to change all the lenses and bulbs, even at 1/6th the price, if I can find a straight substitute!

Really? I was not aware any loops or Tontis had a monoshock & floating final drive...

Clearly, you didn't pay any attention to RH's diatribes: he would have given a multi-page dissertation on how the addition of a steering damper to a Tonti is an utter waste of energy, much like the junk science going into the promotion of the "global warming" scam, since the Tonti frame just needs larger diameter aluminum tubing to once again be a world-beater...

Greg, that should be: Loop: V700 - Eldo Tonti: V7S - CalVin Spine: Daytona 1000 - V11 Sport (& variants) Dual spine: Quota, Breva, Griso, Stelvio, Norge. Ultimately, the Breva et al are derivatives of the dual-spine frame Dr. John did up for the Quota, just done up w/ the twin spars made part of the visual design instead of buried under the tank & side covers.

You & I think along the same lines; I too have had a similar vision since soon after seeing a pic of the spine frame w/ motor in situ [actually, iirc, it was a pic of the Sport from above w/ the tank removed, displaying the spine frame, wiring harness, and the motor from above.] Seemed silly at the time that such a wimpy spar was all that held the front end in alignment; seemed like you could take beer-can thin aluminum, fill up all that wasted space btw the cylinders, ditch the 'box and still end up lighter & sturdier than the square tube [two, stacked, actually] used in the spine frame. Like you said, all pie-in-the-sky armchair engineering [for now! ]

Well, "spec leagues" have been around for a long time, and despite the fact that they're never more than a supporting feature, provide some of the best fan enjoyment out there. They're also easier to get into, & so allow for more racer development. IIRC, Chris Carr got noticed by his performance in the 883 race series back in the late 80s? early 90s? & it wasn't long before he got a factory ride. Hard to break into the upper echelons w/o any feeder classes, & nobody stateside watches 125s race but other racers. (sad but true.) Think of it this way: the starting grid at the Indy 500 would be noticeably thinner w/o Formula Vee. I agree that I'd rather see Guzzi competing in something like the BEARS or whatchacallit, SportST that was proposed a year or so ago? Set up a formula that favors privateering on bikes off the showroom floor with some character [not just a field of cookie-cutter I4 crotch rockets, like the Superbike & Supersport classes.] I dunno, there's got to be a middle ground that will provide for casual fan & racer interest both.

Doh! You're absolutely right; thanks for that correction. I forgot that the original Daytona had the ram air intakes at the rear, behind the rider [never quite figured out how that was supposed to work, but it was what it was...] The Daytona RS, Spot & Sporti, Centauro & v11 Sport (& its derivatives, like my V11LM) all share similar airbox layouts. The lid off a Centauro airbox fits just fine on my LM 'box, I can tell you that much for certain. Don't know that you can get enough volume with a frame-breather a la' Ghezzi&Brian, altho' I like the idea. The one G&B I saw up close seemed like they'd done quite a bit to increase the frame volume at the back end by the pork chops, but w/o a big increase in the size of the main spar, I don't think it could really live up to its potential. I haven't seen the layout of the airbox on the Quotard (twin spar) bikes [Griso, Breva, Norge, et al], but that may be where their greatest potential lies, ignoring obvious technical progress like the new QV motor. I agree that the real reason none of the Guzzisti who've switched to pods over the years have had significant complaints about changes to performance is because the airbox designs on all of these bikes are such HUGE compromises, as you pointed out. Still got to give props to Todd @ Guzzitech, Phil A. & others for the airbox lid modification: the does seem to be about the cheapest, quickest & easiest means of helping these lumps breathe properly [or at least better!]

Great post, Roy! Looking forward to your updates.

I take the opposite tack: it should be parted out, & any parts still useful sold off, heck, even given away to folks who need them to get their bikes back on the road. That way some part of Johnny would still riding out there somewhere. Heck, in this modern world w/ Guzzisti spread out all over the world & all networked via the interweb, there'd be a good chance that he'd never *stop* riding, that there'd be one of his parts on a bike out there in the sun every day, no matter what! Ain't that a happy thought! Dibs on the porkchops! I like mine w/ roasted pineapple on the side...

AFAIK, the airbox used for all the spine frames from the Daytona 1k forward is all same-same. At least the lids are, I believe: since they all seem to use the same filter, and the filter fits in the lid. Umberto Todero did a pretty good job figuring out an airbox that would fit in the space allowed that would still manage to let the motor breathe a lit'l. Must have been the time spent working under Carcano in the Guzzi race shop back in the 50's when the ottocilindri was being developed... Search "airbox lid mod" and "Phil A" and see what you can find...

Not to be snide, but did you even try a search on FBF air box lid before asking? In short, several folks have done this, but the consensus seems to be that the intake roar is pretty serious, and you can save the money and achieve similar performance results with somewhat less noise by cutting holes in the stock lid. Good luck w/ your decision. HTH.

Yes, well, we're also known for being a lot of cheap b@st@rds, so reluctant to part with the hard-earned money for an unproven exhaust that isn't guaranteed to fit at Guzzi's "we'd rather just keep it in inventory" MSRP. As Jaap said, you'll be the 1st, & we're all dying to know! Hope you got a smokin' deal on it! Have fun, take lots of pics of the process!

While I quite like the fluorescent green/red frame combo from the 2001 Sport nekkid, I find it's overkill with all that plastic on the Monza: a definite case of a little going a long way... I was wondering what the result were w/ that spiffy exhaust: obviously, it requires some rejetting since it has no x-over, so that will have some f/x in addition to the different back pressure from the RCMs on the ends of those long & fairly straight headers. Verrry interesting...

Hey, Al's back! Yep, 5 days over 5 years; isn't that something like 5 sidereal years exactly? I forget... Well, you know what they say: time flies like an arrow, fruit flies like a banana! [Actually drosophila prefer thin-skinned fruit, but whatever... ] Or as I say: "Time flies when you're having fun... and even when you're not!"

It sure sounds like they charged you for the powdercoating you did, on top of their time pulling things apart & putting back together again... Well, I think it's a sure bet they've lost you as a repeat customer. And of course, in these days of the internet, they've lost a lot more 1st time customers too, in their haste to make an unearned buck off of you. So the joke's on them! Thanks for the warning!

The downside is the possibility of a catastrophic loss of air pressure when heeled over @ ftb. The 160 isn't designed to fit the wider wheel that can take a 180 section tire. Yes, the 180 is mostly for looks, and is more tire than needed for the amount of power our old ditch pumps can generate. The 170/60 tire will fit the wide rim, or if you really want to go down to a 160[1], then you can find someone who has one of the early [up thru 2002 m.y?] narrower rims that came w/ a 160 rear & offer to swap with them; that's the route Pete Roper took on one of his state-side Guzzis.

Great news, Tom; happy to hear that all your work paid off & you're happy with the results!

According to Guzziology, none of the U.S.-bound spine frames had cats before 2005 when they were unceremoniously terminated by Piaggio. If your bike is an originally-Swiss import, then yeah, it has a cat. The logical location for a cat is the huge pre-muffler "crossover", but according to Greg Field (& by association, Guzziology?), the V11 cats are in the front of the cans, so if you take off a can, & drop a fishing wt. on a string thru the entrance pipe & feel it banging around down at the end w/ the exit pipe [look up my old thread w/ pics of the dissected mufflers for a visual of what I'm describing], then you've got no cat. Personally, I wouldn't fret about it, & just rely on Guzziology's word.