Skeeve

There's a topic?!?

Well, considering that the patent is on a car tire (or "tyre" if you prefer! ), I'd like to do a Rev. Jackson & say "The point is moot!" As for mileage: they got about the same mileage out of those car tires back then as we get out of our sport bike tires now [but we're far more abusive to our tires today.] Wood spoke wheels worked very well in their day. Their expected longevity was more affected by flirting w/ some girl who's dad, brother or erstwhile bf owned an axe or not than any normal stresses applied in daily driving... Ride on!

There's definitely a little of both [arbitrary design & actual R&D] involved. Me, I prefer designs that cross the symmetrical center of the casing occasionally, not because of tread depth concerns (altho' that is a bonus), but because in seriously wet conditions[1], you'll hydroplane on a design w/ no voids [note: siping isn't the same as voids. For one thing, siping wouldn't give you much of an idea of tread depth, unless you had a well-lubed feeler gage to shove into a sipe... ] And hydroplaning on a single-track vehicle rhymes w/ "fall down," which I try to avoid! Anyway, my feelings on the topic are that tread designs lean more toward "design as art" than "design as science" but that's just my take on it. Ride on! [1] I don't ride in the rain if I can avoid it, but I somehow manage to get caught in a downpour at least once a year. Sux, don't it?

#1: Straight center grooves are the devil's own handiwork if you ride on CA highways w/ the "rain grooves" cut into them by diamond saw [why they don't just press'em in while the concrete is wet I'll never know... ] #2: There is at least one sport-touring tire w/ voids that cross the centerline of the tire, 'cause it's on the back of my Suzuki as I write! Shinko tires are what used to be Yokohamas before they (Y'k'a) got out of the motorcycle tire business back in '05? or so. Accordingly, their rubber formulas aren't up to present Michelin, M&P, or Dunlop standards, but they're at least a level above the other "off shore" brands. So far, I'm happy w/ the Shinko 009? (maybe it was the 005 model) on the rear of my SV. I would think that one of the majors still makes a tread design that will give you access to center of tread depth estimation, but these things all go in cycles, so at most you'll have to wait a year or two before someone releases a "new tire model" that has a tread design you like. I always liked the Conti Force tire & tread design, even tho' it's roughly equivalent to the MEZ4 in longevity & grip [better in the wet than the Z4's uninspiring performance there tho', but still no patch on the newer Z6 tire...] #3: There is no three. #4: The nice thing about living in So. Cal. is that you really don't need to worry too much about wet grip, unless you go riding Palomar or ACH in the spring time when the snow melt is across the road... unlike our poor brethren in Denmark this summer! [from another thread ] Ride on!

It was homologated before the emissions restrictions got as, well, restrictive as they are today! Don't forget, the V11 got a catcon in the cans in some areas by '03? or so, to help it keep clean. Also, I suspect that Guzzi got cut some slack as a "boutique builder" with output of Seriously, this question of "where are my mpgs?" is derivative of past threads regarding what Guzzi needs to do to keep the old air-cooled ditch pump alive into the new millenium, and well, they did it: it's the new QV motor, and once Piaggio gets past all the bad press from the lifters going kerblooie and gets the parts QC up to snuff, I'm certain that in a few years we'll all be writing threads on 'how come it took them so long?..' Frankly, I don't know why Guzzi never continued w/ the 4v small block bikes either, once they'd finally solved all the teething problems w/ those, but that revisits the whole Ippogrifo thread. And all this talk of derivative threads reminds me of financial derivatives and their part in the GFC...

I did this. Something to keep in mind, the Buell stalk is bent, so it gives your Guzzi the "droopy antennae" look in comparison w/ the original mirrors once you make the switch. Not necessarily bad, just a change you may not care for but have to accept for the chance to spend less time inspecting your elbows at speed...

More exhaust overlap on the V11 cam, leading to short-circuiting at low rpm. Getting that last 20% hp increase uses 80% of the fuel of the power already attained. The quotards have more conservative cam timing [for emissions reasons] and get considerably better mileage. Of course, their dual-plugging helps bunches too! You want to play, you have to pay... Anyway, that's my theory. I'm certain adjustments to the fueling could wring out some of that difference, but what's really required is a complete change to the combustion chamber and valve setup. I'm thinking a wedge head would work well in the Guzzi donk, but I don't have the wherewithal to experiment w/ that...

There, fixed it for ya...

As I think someone else replied already, the extra length of the '02+ bikes was in the "spine" of the frame, moving the headstock forward of the engine & hence affecting the rear wt. bias by decreasing wt. on the front end. Thoughts regarding swingarm: Motorcycle swing arms should be as long as possible. Long swing arms tend to lengthen the wheelbase. Long wheelbases tend to decrease maneuverability. Trying the lengthen the swing arm while keeping the same wheelbase is what led to the 3-shaft 6-speed transmissions in our V11s. The best solution would be a swing arm that pivoted on the front of the engine for the longest length possible while keeping the wheelbase short. BTW, the longer the drive shaft the less the shaft-effect on shaft drive bikes. Thoughts regarding suspension: Guzzi suspension shortcomings mostly stem from excessive mass, not necessarily their shaft drive. Excessive unsprung wt. [yes, on the rear this is largely due to the shaft drive, but what about the front?] is the enemy. Lighter wheels, brakes & swingarm are your friends. Lighter everything is better: have you tried to lift that old ditch pump yourself? Hoo boy, thatsa one porky motor! [NB: I'd love to have a spare set of cylinders to modify: I've got an aircraft bit and am willing to bet you could lose a couple pounds of aluminum from the fins [& increase surface area for cooling in the process] w/o too much trouble... but I'm not reckless enough to try it on the primary set! ] Better components [you knew there was a reason some folks paid extra for the Scuras & RC & NC models despite their funky paint schemes, right? ] help. Proper setup helps. How Guzzi "should" have designed it: Just the way they did. And left it that way, instead of lengthening the spine. But they couldn't risk it, because while Suzuki could eat the loss from the negative press from the moto rags railing about "headshake at speed" on the TL1000S & -R, Guzzi could have gone under from the press saying the same thing the following year about the V11. [The "press" in this case was full of b.s.: how does their inability to properly inflate tires/care for the machines they're road testing translate to a "design flaw" on the manufacturers' part? Newsflash: if you have a powerful, light-handling bike then the front end is going to get loose over bumps at speed! Ride like you mean it, dumbass! Stupid hacks get paid for this stuff & I have to just drool & wish it was me instead of them...] Conclusions: If you want something incredibly short & twitchy, get a Buell - that's their forte. Don't try to turn a Guzzi into a sportbike; that's not what it was built for. As someone else said, "They're a gentleman's Express." Go out & ride it. Make the changes you want to personalize it to suit you better, not to adapt it to some unrealistic ideal. Ride it some more...

Instead of a "tiptoe thru the tulips" he went for an "endo in the cholla" eh? The worst part comes in another month or thereabouts, when the little tips of the needles that broke off in the wounds start festering. Not as bad as a sea urchin spine in the tip of your thumb [DAMHIK], but there's more of them to make up for their tiny size!

I thought that much of that figure came from the 1225cc displacement, plus pulling the numbers from the crank rather than the rear wheel? Figuring a 10% driveline loss ( I know, very favorable!), that still only works out to 107hp; about 12hp up from the stock 95 w/ 1000cc. 12hp from a 200cc bump seems reasonable... but not at their prices!

You'd certainly hope that Mr. Roper would have fitted one of his infamous sloppage sheets to his own bike!

Well, it works now, but requires a login... Not that I speak Deutsch, but I'm not afraid of trying machine translation & puzzling my way thru!

Ah, "HTFU" is synonymous w/ "Sack up" then. Got it.

Pete: what's "HTFU"? I know "stfu," but "htfu" strikes me as a mash up of "hth" & "stfu," and believe you me, I am not "happy to f!ck up" in fact, I've found it quite irritating whenever I've fup ducked. As for the whining, I don't know why Guzzi has found it so difficult to hang a filter off the front of the sump; heck, there's been the deep vee sump aftermarket part showing them the way for dog's years! How hard could it be to knock off that part & just make it standard fitment? No matter, while it's a trifle annoying to have to drop the pan to get at the filter, it's not the same hassle as having to turn the wheel all the way left, drop the bash plate, take a pie tin & wedge it in position, then snake my hand up, around & thru from beneath to reach the oil filter on my Toyota. Then there's the around 20deg of rotational movement that I have clearance for when in position, so it takes about 5 minutes of turning just to get the filter off of my truck. Nor do I have to deal with the fact that with the filter mounted upside down on my truck, the oil drains down the side of the engine & my arm [never change the oil hot in this beast, let me tell you!], which explains the need for the pie tin wedged up over the x-member to keep the oil at least somewhat aimed at the drain pan. Did I mention that you have to clean the mounting surface by feel, as there's no direct sight line at it from any angle to inspect for munge that will cause the new filter to leak? Lucky thing the filter is smaller than the one on the Guzzi, so you can still get it out off w/o being caught in some monkey trap scenario! Who cares that because the dang thing is so small, you'd d@mn well better replace it every oil change! Yes, I *could* get the remote mount filter relocation kit for my truck, it's just easier to complain about it than to pony up the money (& it's much cheaper than the deep vee sump! )

Why not? The Ducatisti want to compare performance & handling of the 4v Ducs vs Guzzis, so why shouldn't there be fair play to include the service costs of the respective bikes? Would I like to own a 4v Duc? Of course. Would I like to pay the service costs? No. Could I afford the service costs? Not a chance!

(emphasis added) Huh? I thought Tenni's got the aluminum flywheel w/ their single plate clutches, and the choice of that material/improper machining of it was what led to the "exploding clutch" syndrome? Very sorry to hear of your bad reliability experiences w/ your Guzzi. As others have suggested, perhaps a switch to the twin-plate affair out of one of the non-special-edition models of V11 will be a permanent solution? You could always spring for the aftermarket RAM alloy clutch kit that Guzzi was apparently trying to knock off when they fitted the Tennis & Scuras w/ their failure-prone single plates, but I expect that you'll want to steer clear of any posh racing bits if reliability is your goal...

Before Mazda licensed the rights to the Wankel and trademarked it as the Rotory ['cause it's got rotors instead of pistons, don'tcha know... ], about 40 or so years prior there had been "rotary" engines pinned to the front of biplanes to provide power. IIRC, the "monosoupape?" ('one valve') was one of them. They were briefly popular, because back in the days of cast iron everything, cooling air flow for the mofos was problematic: everything was fine up in the air flying, of course, but on the ground taxiing the engines would melt! What to do, what to do... I've got it! We'll bolt the prop to the engine cases, and the end of the crank to the fuselage, and the engine will create its own cooling airflow! Little bit of a redesign, run the fuel in thru a hollow crank, hey, it's a two-stroke we'll just mix oil w/ the fuel, bada bing, ipso facto, cogito ergo sum: we've got a rotary 'cause the entire engine rotates hanging out there on the front of the airplane! Made barrel rolls to the left easy-peasy, but slower'n molasses in winter trying to go in the same direction the engine rotates... That's it for today's lecture: further research is left up to the reader... Anyway, the Megola is definitely a rotary, as Mike said, it's just not a Wankel [which has a longer history in motorcycling than you might suspect: the DWM? forced-induction two-strokes of the '30s used Wankel superchargers...

Great link, thanks for posting it! & I thought no one was crazy enough to try to do the Megola one better... As for "small & weak," airplanes were more like kites back then: wood & paper, glued & held together w/ bits of string! Didn't take as much of an engine to get one of those off the ground in a stiff breeze! That radial rotary valved 3cyl 2-stroke couldn't have had much performance back then unless "blown," given the non-existent grasp of expansion chamber acoustics and likely-poor crankcase supercharging such a layout would possess. Putting a blower on it would make it viable, but I'm still not certain I'd want all that gyro f/x going on inside the front wheel of any bike I'm trying to steer!

- stupid + guzzipete

AFAICR, Manic Salamanders always got the nod...

He said his wheel bearings failed, not the muffler bearing! Pay attention...

Yes, the Tuneboy is an alternative to the PCIII, but instead of a box that intercepts signals to/from the ECU, Tuneboy is a software&cable solution to reprogram the ECU: more powerful, but more dangerous too [screw up the PCIII map; unplug the PCIII & you're back to stock. Screw up w/ Tuneboy & it's new ECU time if you really messed up...] If you're backfiring, it would seem that you need to do a valve adjustment...

What kind of stupid question is that? OF COURSE! Guzzi crack.... stop teasing & gimme my fix!

Hubert, you're arguing from theory a philosophical point. Greg is arguing from experience about empirical evidence. You're fighting a losing battle because nobody here much cares about the theory, we're all a bunch of Joe Fridays "Just the facts, ma'am..." guzzisti. Who knows what the responsible engineer called out for on the original drawings? We've got enough anecdotal evidence from before the problem even surfaced that there were issues w/ the QV engine's development, and now here we are, 2 years down the road & whoopsie, they're eating their tappets! Obviously, someone somewhere put their foot wrong, but none of it much matters now except that Piaggio is trying to conceal the fact that they ever screwed the pooch. Fortunately for us in the U.S., the fact that we always seem to get the new models about a year after everyone else means that the bugs are usually worked out [or at least known before we purchase! ] so we experience fewer allegiance-altering failures. It does NOT mean that we don't have anyone qualified to offer an opinion on the relevant matter(s). Ride on!