Skeeve

I share your pain: I bought a Guzzi rack, and it didn't come w/ the [absolutely necessary] additional plates that it mounts to. The plates mount to the backside of the passenger peg hangers, w/ longer through bolts. The rack then mounts to these plates. Do a thread search, & I'm sure you'll find the pics of the plates that Greg Field kindly posted. Me, I'm still "getting around to" fabbing up a pair of the plates to mount my rack. Too many other items of far greater importance for me these days, I'm afraid...

Ah, don't go getting yer panties in a twist! New guys are always subject to a little hazing, you know how it is... Definitely please weigh in on the pinging topic: this is an area where everyone's experience is different, & hence worth hearing. While some would not be interested in a modern urethane alternative to the stock buna-n Guzzi rubber, there are others one the board who would find these of interest, as witness the otherwise-impossible 19pg thread from last year would never have come into being! Is it worth $30 to me? Not right now, I'm sorry to day. I'm not even going to pony up $8 for one of Ryland's improved relays, mostly due to the shipping cost making them even less attractive to someone who already has a complete set of GEIs. But please proceed w/ development, & let us all know how you make out. Get the price down to $12 [ie, $2/wedge] and I'm sure you'll find a bunch of takers, even among the previously "why bother?" camp. Ride on!

George Carlin, philosopher for the common man!

You've missed the point. I have nothing against a 2->1, in fact, I would favor them, since 1 large can will usually weigh less than 2 smaller ones. I was only pointing out that the VOLUME needed for an effective muffler [we're discussing street-legal applications here, not race cans] just was not visible in the link to the ebay vendor that started this thread. In fact, the "race exhaust" sold by that vendor appeared merely to be the standard exhuast with a 2->1 collector feeding into one of the unnecessarily restrictive [see the thread on dissecting the stock cans] stock mufflers. The point being, I think, that a healthy dose of "caveat emptor" is in order when dealing w/ some no-name eBay-only seller w/ a "race exhaust" of unknown provenance.

In this application, pressure & flow are not equivalent. The reason the higher viscosity fluid builds pressure faster is because less of it is going where its needed. Guzzis have never needed the heavyweight oils that the old Harleys did; in fact, there's a wonderful story about the correct oil from back in the days when Berliner was importing them. Of course, that was back in the days of straight wt. oils, which are getting hard to find these days. Yay for multi-viz!

1) Brass is sold by wt.; the chunk of brass bar stock that the screw machine cuts & threads into the piece is probably about 2x as heavy as the actual fitting. And that single piece fitting has what, 4x? 5x? the brass content of the (mostly plastic) inadequate bean-counter replacement? Of course it costs more... 2) They put cooling fins because it looks "trick" or "cool." How about "racy?" Purely cosmetic, I'm sure. Or maybe they figured it's an air-cooled engine, so why not make use of any additional surface available to dump heat? Your guess is as good as mine, Dave! 3) The sensor doesn't plug directly into the head because that's the way they decided to build it! It may have been some abstruse consideration of "the sensor only comes w/ this fine thread, but we can have a lower defect rate if we use this larger, coarser thread in the head." Or maybe it was a case of "we've designed the head for this sensor, which is now no longer available. Rather than changing our casting/machining process for the head, which we think we've finally got sorted out, lets just use an adapter to fit this other sensor." But you're right, they could have made it so the sensor just plugged right in, but they went with another method. Que sera sera!

Thanks for making my point, Tom. That's not really a muffler, and if you tried running your v11 w/ that open megaphone Gianfranco's using you'd get a ticket for disturbing the peace in pretty short order, I'm sure!

Not a good idea, converting the V11 to a 2->1 exhaust, with one can approx. the volume of one of the stock cans. Too much restriction, unless the can is simply hollow, then it's just too much NOISE!. Big twins like big [exhaust] volume. This is one of those things the H-D crowd just never seem to "get," & keep putting on either stupidly loud drag pipes or skinny "chopper" pipes.

The change from brass sensor holder to plastic mid-production was a very strong tell-tale that it was Aprilia's bean-counters influencing production decisions, not the engineers. Don't you read Dilbert? It's not a comic strip, it's a documentary on the life of a corporate engineer. Scott Adams used to work for Pac Bell. Just like in the strip, the company accountants are demons from Heck.

It's interesting how in the size font the board seems to default to in my browser, "vernierable" looks so much like "venerable" and the combo of "venerable steel gears" makes them sound worthy but almost impossible to find, like the holy grail of Guzzidom or something!

Ratch, where do I get a nifty alloy dipstick like yours? Mine's just a visually indistinct black plastic cruciform rod...

Yup. Aluminum is a poor choice for gears [frets itself]; it would make more sense to make them out of bronze or a combo of aluminum/delrin or some type of thermoset resin than the Al/Al sets available. That's just a sign of poor engineering. Of course, steel would be ideal, but it comes at a higher cost. Hence the factory's decision to switch to chain drive back in the 70s, when costs were still cheap compared to today!

1- Chopper ethic 2- See above 3- Battery holder? 4- Handle for shop stand? Hand shift (see 1 & 2)?

A - Not for most users. B - Greater cam timing accuracy [only likely to be relevant at redline rpm.] C - Unnecessary expense. Poor design (aluminum gears) leading to engine failure. More difficult wrenching. D - Yes.

What investment? He's not their property, they haven't paid him off for all the "starving artist" years out of the public eye, and in fact, everything they pay him is treated as an advance against his record sales ["draw against base," for you 100% commission sales droids out there.] Unless he's got some really great (& unusual) contract, that's the standard drill, and they have no basis for telling him how to live his life. Don't want me to ride my bike? Fine, you're paying for the flying lessons & giving me unlimited practice hours in the corporate jet!

So, tell us about this M.I.L? What's her favorite candy, beer, cigar?..

That's a proper CO's assistant! The CO should never be bothered w/ such trifles...

PM me your address, & I'll send you a "Get Out of Hell Free" one. I got a bunch from This Is True a long time ago, & still haven't gone thru all of them yet. I always keep a spare in my biz card carrier, so when someone is having a really sh!tty day, I can cheer'em up. Of course, the truly obtuse don't get it, but they need to be shaken, not stirred, as often as possible anyway, to get some sort of consciousness bump started... or at least a sense of humour!

But how did he manage to get all those pigs to pack into those cages so closely?

The oil vapor isn't so much from heat/vapor pressure issues, as just plain "pumping" creating an aerosol: there's a lot of oil getting sprayed around inside an engine, esp. the bigger the cylinder - ie, large singles worse, twin of the same displacement less so, triples less, & on down the line. MG's 500cc V8 probably didn't have much oil entrainment to worry about, just pushing it all around the engine from one area to another... - this is an oversimplification, but it all comes down to air moving around inside the engine, picking up droplets of oil in the process, & then were is it all going to go so the oil can fall back out of the aerosol suspension? At least, that's the way it was told to me...

It's a power thing. They feel like they're "taming the beast" if it's bucking beneath them but still does what they want [in this case, continue to move forward.]

The actual frame (spine) was lengthened in '02? [w/ introduction of v11 LeMans, iirc]; that might be the source of your perception that the engine mount is different. FWIW, everyone here w/ the older, "short frame" has no complaint about the handling: Guzzi apparently made the change to solve a non-problem fabricated by the moto-press to give themselves something to write about...

1) How much do you weigh? If you're over about 80kg (175#), the rear spring is likely to be too soft for you. It kinda depends upon your riding, how much gear you wear, whether you regularly ride 2 up, etc. 2) Look into the aftermarket knockoffs of the old BMW R90s bikini fairing. I've seen several pics of Guzzis w/ variations on this theme, & they all look tasty! 3) Not my area. Change the fluid, see if someone can turn'em down for you but stay w/in spec, find some "will fits" on eBay... 4) Still working on this m'self. Noodle around the board; I think we got a recent confirmation that the correct "alternate fitment" is a '93? KZ500 or something... 5) Fiamms.Cheap at most auto parts stores. Just use one of your retired Siemens relays for power supply. You did replace the cr@ppy stock relays, right? 6) There's some good seat mod instructions lurking on the web. My best tip [under the cheap & easy category] is to focus on the seat pan. I've mod'd the stock seats on my SV650 [notorious torture rack! 45 minute max driver, 30 minute pillion] just by peeling off the cover & foam, & smooth the pan w/ body filler. Button everything back up the way it was. Basically doubled my time to pain on the stock seats....

Carl, they can get real marzipan over there, made w/ bitter almonds. The drug co.s made the USDA force the U.S. farmers to cut all theirs down, 'cause they don't want us getting any vitamin B17 [or whatever # it is, the one that's the cancer preventative. Same thing as in Laetrile?, I think, only if you start taking it after you've been diagnosed w/ some honking great stomach tumour like Steve McQueen, it's already too late...] But unless I miss my guess, they can still get the real deal across the Pond, made w/ bitter almonds, so it's not so disgustingly sweet as the marzipan we get here made w/ sweet almonds. REAL ALMONDY, you know?