Skeeve

Yeah, you're a wanker all right. But then, so'm I. I'll try to restrain myself too. Not that I'm worried about getting banned; I'd just head over to WildGuzzi & torment Mikey some, or annoy Todd over on Guzzitech. But I really prefer twisting the tails over here on v11LM most! Heck, I hardly even post on the LABiker listserve any more, & I'm an O.G. over there! Of course, my 1st take on this message was that it was a hack-job, so I'm not taking any of it seriously until Jaap informs me I've been put on double-secret probation... Ride on!

What does Paypal have to do w/ buying a Guzzi? Unless you got it off Fleabay, o' course!

Ah, but mine goes to eleven!

Keep the ovloV for use during the winter, & as soon as the weather warms up a bit switch to the Guzzi. Long miles on cold, wet & icy? roads are not conducive to motorcycling happiness. Nor rider longevity. Best o' luck

Mind explaining the difference btw the sealed & unsealed in ordinary terms for those of us who're generally unfamiliar w/ relays to begin with [preferably using small words?]

Actually, you just need to drill a couple holes in that shiny aluminum plate w/ "Danger! Hot!" stamped in its surface for the soft iron wire to strap stuff to it. That's the exhaust manifold heat shield; it's conveniently placed in the *only* available open space under the bonnet, which is part of why the service manuals always say "With a cold engine, start by..." for the instructions on how to change the spark plugs... HTH

It's OOP. I just sold my copy of the von Hoffman brothers' Big Damn Book of Sheer Manliness for $75 [others on Amazon listed at $90+; I needed the money fast] which was about 2x what I paid for it 3 years & 2 moves ago [haven't looked at it since before the 1st move], & I paid a 1.5x premium over its original list price to get it at the time. Some books are just worth more than others, y'know? That's why even w/ the dollar in the sh!tter vs. the euro/lb-sterling/anything, I'm still considering shelling out the ducats to get a current reprint of Ricardo's The Internal Combustion Engine sent over from the UK. There just aren't any copies running round loose over here...

Shucks, I don't sign in for a day & I've missed something! I hate it when that happens! Can't a guy take even one day off? Ah well, at least it seems to have ended amicably. Ride on,

Pete: You're absolutely right, wheelies are pointless. So's bowling. So are a lot of other things people do. So why do they do'em? 'Cause they're fun! Of course, dirt bikes are made for wheelying, so there's always that "plan B" approach for those who've got the ready cash and garage space to support it. Ride on!

Those are quite sharp looking, aren't they? Good job!

Squish is better because it produces a more efficient burn, vs. timing which may sacrifice potential maximum power to a poor combustion chamber profile. But you use the tools that you have to do what you can. As far as adjusting timing, would you break down & get a copy of Phil Irving's _Tuning for Speed_ already? Yeah, I know it's OOP: go to the library, & ask for it via interlibrary loan! So what if it costs you $10 to get them to ship it to you, & another $20 to copy it in its entirety? It's worth it! [Note: I'm not advising you to violate copyright. Extreme measures are called for when a publisher is stupid enough to let something this useful & popular go out of print. If it was still in print, I'd be telling you to find it on Amazon or bn.com. I wouldn't be surprised if making this book unavailable was part of some EPA/CARB/EuroSmog conspiracy! ] To paraphrase: "it's best to find a long stretch of road, preferably with a slight uphill slant. You will want to be accelerating through the range where the motor pings, retard the timing until the motor stops pinging. At that point, you will want to try to hold the throttle steady, and adjust the timing to produce the greatest speed [or rpm]; this will be your optimum timing for that throttle setting. Repeat throughout the range. Obviously it is best to have a distributor with some means of adjusting the advance or retard on the fly, which is why this sort of tuning is usually performed by the factory during a model's development..." I get the feeling Phil Irving would have killed to have some of the tuning abilities that we do today, what with EFI and incremental adjustment by laptop! Heck, I'd like to have that, at an affordable price! Right now, the products are on the far side of the Laffer curve: if the industry would wake up to the fact that they should all have a standard interface like the OBDII standard forced car makers to uphold, then DynoJet, TR, TuneBoy, et al would be able to make & sell their products in volume for $100/ea & make MUCH bigger profits than they do now selling their bits oney-twosey for discouraging prices...

What crash testing? DOT doesn't test the chinbar, Snell only tests what they've been submitted & all the flip-front manufacturers only submit under the open-face guidelines. I think Shoei submitted their Synchrotech under the full-face & passed it the 1st year only, but that's rumour & hearsay. The only testing of flip-front chinbars that I'm aware of was performed by a magazine, and was quite revelatory. Unfortunately, they did not provide a baseline of a regular full-face helmet of recognizable pedigree for comparison. Ride on!

Try Guzzitech, MPH or MotoInt'l.: iirc, all three picked up some plates "on spec" from Pete, in order to reduce the shipping vs. people buying individual plates & having them shipped from Oz. Good luck! If I had any $ to spare, I'd do the same...

Bit of a trip from Tucson, but there's some good riding on the way...

I remember reading something about when Piaggio took over the importation of Guzzis to USA from MGNA, that there was some flap over no more Guzzis for Canada because the existing importer was being cut out (I presume w/ the expectation by Piaggio that they were also going to handle that market from their New York HQ.) I don't know if that ever got resolved: are post-'05 Guzzi models available there at all? You could try contacting Piaggio USA and see if they can provide that information. Best of luck, & keep everyone here informed of your success... Ride on!

Not likely to get any argument from me on that! It took me many years to realize just how completely unreliable many moto-journos are: I really only trust MCN [the 'murrican version, not the Brit] and the general slating that the Brit rags give anything they don't like [which at least smacks of honesty, but not something to take as absolute gospel, since it seems many of the stories are written as comedy... ] Ah, someone I can keep up with! Who's (or rides like it) your grandad? One comforting thing about having the older brother that always excelled far beyond my abilities in most kinesthetic activities is that I gave up on the competitiveness that leads squids to becoming hood ornaments of on-coming SUVs years ago... Ride on!

Sorry, just came in: did I miss something? Welcome to the most fabulous moto-forum on the planet; glad you could make it! WRT your inquiry re: the 2001 v11, about the only things specific to that vintage that I've come across here on V11LM.com are the existence of an oversize stud in the tranny that the shift lever return spring rides on that causes the spring to break and lock the tranny in gear. [vs. locking up the tranny, which is a VBT! ] There was a recall for this; probably the best thing to do is check w/ one of the good Guzzi dealers like Moto Int'l. or MPH or Moto Guzzi Classics (not technically a dealer anymore, but still awesome service) about any recall bulletins for your year. Have the VIN & engine case #s handy when you call: that info can save some head scratching wrt what or what not might be required. Even with the replacement boss, there have been reports of the shifter return spring failing, and there's someone in flyover country [OK? KS? AR?] that makes a replacement w/ reports of better longevity than the factory spring. Reports of the "twitchiness" of the short-frame v11s' handling have been roundly disputed by several sources here: it seems more likely that the reports by the moto rags of "high speed instability" are more closely related to general inattention of moto journalists to maintenance [after all, the bikes aren't theirs! ] and Guzzi's attempt to follow fashion by putting a wider-than-optimal tire for the rim on their bikes. Couple underinflation w/ a rear tire that resists steering inputs, and some speed wobbles are completely understandable. Me personally, I don't care for the fluorescent green colour of the 2001 v11 Sport, but that's just me. Glad to hear your deal is going thru, and looking forward to seeing your posts about your new pride & joy! Ride on!

I think they're saying the port should be connected to the airbox. "Intake pressure" would be the air pressure inside the airbox; "intake vacuum" would be intake in the manifold next to the injectors. As for how quickly or not the pressure regulator would fail getting the rather substantial pressure fluctuations fed into it, I have no idea. Maybe the addition of a pinhole restrictor a la' the little brass units that come w/ carb stix [mercury manometers, whatever you want to call'em...] would be in order? Easy enough to try it out, but to me so it's all just theoretical AFAIC.

Just jealousy. He probably can't handle a bike [rated as just one notch down from piloting helos for complex motor skills], so hates those of us who can!

That's funny! By her own quoted self-description, she should be on a (stock) Harley, if she's based in the U.S! Out in the wide empty, the only dealer you're likely to find is a H-D shop, w/ dirt-bike only J-brand dealerships a distant second. Parts availability? That only leaves the H-D guys. Say what you will, but H-D shoulda snapped up Guzzi when they had the chance: the only thing the brand has ever lacked in the U.S. is a decent dealer network [no reflection on the great sponsors of this site & others: you guys are wonderful, but too few & far between!] which H-D certainly could have provided. But when you figure they can't even get their own to support Buell adequately, well, maybe it wouldn't have been such an easy solution... Let's just hope that Piaggio gets their collective heads out of their... sand & start hiring/backing people who know & support the brand, or QV engines or not, Guzzi isn't going to last. Ride on!

For the "but these amps go to 11!" factor?

It's seriously not that difficult to use feeler guages, the key being that to set a .006 clearance, you'll need the .007 & .005 feelers as well. Most people who've never been told how to use a feeler guage don't realize this. On a .006 setting, there will be light drag on the .006 guage, none on the .005, and no entry by the .007 [w/o noticeable application of force.] Quite literally, everything is measured by "feel," hence the name. Locknut tightening affecting the adjustment you just made can be a pain, esp. when accessing them out of position like when lying under a VW Beetle [the real ones, not the Golf w/ swoopy bodywork they presently sell as a "Beetle"], but w/ the easy upright access to Guzzi valves, this shouldn't be too hard to overcome. And I don't know why you group me w/ Ratch as being "all that good;" the fact is that I'm blessed w/ more than my fair share of thumbs when it comes to things mechanical [my bro' Paul got all the spare fingers, I guess: he's a mech. wiz!] & if I can manage, I quite rightly expect that the majority of forum members who actually give it a reasonably earnest try can do so as well. Does this mean I can feel the difference btw .0055 & .006 w/ my .006" guage leaf? No. It just means that when used correctly, feeler guages enable the trained user [eg: everyone who just read & understood my instructions above] to generally achieve a clearance within plus or minus .0005" of the selected guage. If you had a guage set w/ a .0005" leaf, then I expect that would enable the average user to achieve plus or minus .00025" accuracy, but there's a limit to how accurate & small you can take this: fortunately, we don't need to go to those extremes on our "old ditch pumps." Ride on!

From your description, I'm curious as to whether this shop is owned by the same individual/group that owns Oceanside H-D [also w/ a dealership in Escondido] who seem really on the ball. I imagine all dealerships are headed the way of multi-line dealerships, much like the auto dealers have long since gone. In the end, as long as they can perform Guzzi service, more dealers are better. I don't care if the sell Vespas to keep the doors open.

Well, hopefully not that far off! You do realize that to set a "6 thou" clearance, you utilize the .005" & .007" feeler gauges don't you? But I completely agree that there's variance by the individual performing the setting, so in the case of our old 'ditch pumps,' looser is better, within limits. Ride on!

3 pronged attack: Replace relays. [check!] Adjust tappets to world spec. [u.S. spec is rubbish to meet EPA noise mandates; hardly relevant when cars w/ broken exhaust manifolds don't get cited for noise vs. motorcycles w/ aftermarket exhausts being persecuted, regardless of noise level. ] Check for tank suck [Known issue.] Bonus: Insulate fuel pump & lines under tank, as this may be partial result of the vapor lock issue afflicting '00-'02 v11s. [Again, a known issue only encountered in hot weather.] Best o' luck!