Skeeve

Not having seen a picture of the cam chain or how it bends, I'd just like to point out: it depends! How much power is being transmitted via the chain, and how sharp is the bend? Typically, any chain sprocket w/ If BMW figures that the HP2 cam chain can survive the tight bends in its path longer than the new "explodo-Matic" final drives they've been making, then who cares if it goes south shortly after the bike comes in for the 50,000 mile final drive replacement? Just put in a new cam chain as a "required" part of the final drive service!

Yup, altho' on this side of the pond it originated in Kansas, not Jo'burg! I wonder of there's a Snopes entry for it? [too lazy to go look...]

It's Ed Milich, one-half(?) of Guzzitech.com. But yeah, it was truly a wonderful ad. Sure does make you appreciate the wonder of dual throttle bodies on our v11s, tho', doesn't it? Only 60 ponies? Ouch... Ride on!

Oooh, I need one of those! Our mindless overlords in Sacto. have declared all 2-smokes illegal, but I could still register that water buffalo as "grandfathered." And it's big, so even more offensive to the greenies! And it's reliable, which is all I really care about in a commuter bike... Have fun w/ that project; I just saw a lovely example of one at the local vintage bike gathering last month, & it was truly a nice ride. It kinda got eclipsed by the rideable 1927 Excelsior ["American X" to you Brit bike cognisceti...], but hey, it's all good!

Well, in all fairness I haven't been there for 20 years, but I imagine things are still much the same: residents of Paris, like any other major metropolis, simply haven't got time for the funny furriners who don't speak their language. At the time, the only people I knew who had an unqualifiedly good time in Paris either had friends there who were fluent in French to show them around, or were truly fluent themselves. Me? I had 1 full year of junior-college French under my belt, and couldn't get the time of day out of anyone, except for one truly kind & generous soul who spoke no English whatsoever but went out of her way to try & help my girlfriend & I find our way to the correct arrondisement(?) where our hotel was waiting. Thank you unnamed wonderful gal, from 20 years in the future! The south of France in summertime is wonderful, except for all the dang student tourists backpacking across Europe cluttering up the place! Oh, wait... Spain was great, truly friendly people, and you can see why the conquistadors basically stopped exploring once they hit California: they'd traveled 1/2 way round the world & found themselves back home! I had that revelation after spending the winter (coldest once since WWII) in England, visiting a cold&rainy Paris, hopping on the overnight train to Madrid & exiting the underground railway station into beautiful So. Cal. sunshine, only it wasn't So.Cal! Even better, the residents spoke Spanish the way they taught it to you in high school, not the slang-filled argot that the Mexican kids in school spoke [who didn't want you to learn Spanish anyway, so they could talk about you w/o your knowing what they were saying... (Northern) Italy was fantastic, Switzerland was super, Norway & Sweden were fabulous, Ireland was fun [except for the idiot drunk smoker who couldn't resist lighting up in the (over)filled (only) non-smoking car on the train, despite all the people telling him to go to the next car or put it out... F!ck you @ssh0le, from 20 years in the future! ] Wish I had the money to go, & the dollar was still riding as high as it was then [1.60/librum, 7? fr/$1, etc... Things were looking up under Ronnie Raygun! ] -- I'd sell off all my cr@p, chuck this stupid job, fly to Mandello & go on a 6 month walk(ride)about!

I'm guessing a minimum of 4, but I'm not familiar enough w/ military designations to say. I suppose I could look it up, but just too lazy right now. Ride on!

Well, the 2002 & earlier V11s have a potential for vapor lock when ridden in hot climates & then stopped for a brief period. These models are recognizable by the genuine artificial leatherette "chin guard" on the tank surrounding & stretching back from the gas cap. The LeMans Tenni is a 2002 special edition which has the fuel pump in a different location [similar to the Centauros & 1100 Sporti] & appears exempt. Other than the shifter spring you already mentioned & the "blistering cases" issues, there's not really much in the way of reliability problems. The 2003 & later models moved the fuel pump inside the fuel tank to solve the vapor locking, but added the front balance pipe on the headers, which has proven troublesome for many. So flip a coin & take your chances!

Entirely possible; I'm no Dave Richardson, Greg Field or Pete Roper, nor do I even own a copy of Guzziology (yet!) I'm only going by what I remember from cruising various Guzzi sites and reading.

Going Sunday. I don't wake up early enough to get on the ride lists; I just go for the show. I have to go this year to re-up my subscription to Motorcycle Consumer News (the U.S. mag, not the U.K. one) as the show deal is better than anything they offer direct to their subscribers! Have fun!

Engines are all much of a sameness: a Bilabial?, Bilingual?, Bahooleyhoo! is a V11, is a V11 is a V11. Differences btw v11s & Sporti are (to my limited knowledge): larger throttle bodies on the Sporti, larger intake & exhaust valves by .5mm (biggest of the Big Valve heads), gearbox & driveline differences of course. The v11 engine being derivative of the 1100 Sport got some minor evolutionary improvements, like moving the oil cooler up out of the crud thrown up by the front tire, slightly smaller valves to improve tractability, etc. So if you're building a racer, you might want to stick w/ the Sport heads & throttle bodies [44mm vs 40mm?; check w/ Guzziology, don't rely on me! ] for the top end rush, but everything else should be much the same. On a semi-related note, I have just been corresponding w/ Peter Morcombe of Reboot Guzzi spares about the wt. diff. btw the Tonti & spine frames. Basically, there is none when you factor in the wt. of the subframes for the spineys! I had always wondered about why it was that the modern Guzzis weighed no less [more, actually] than a mid-70s LM I, despite 30 years of more advanced materials, etc. OTOH, using the standard "66%" rule for aluminum vs. steel, you could save about 2.5# of unsprung wt. by going w/ an aluminum swingarm, and another 2.5# w/ an aluminum rear subframe. That would help the aft wt. bias problem a bit, as well as offer better compliance from the back end. Best of luck!

Well, Taiwan ROC pretty much just goes by Taiwan these days: the PRC still claims they're a rebellious province, but nobody outside of their own borders believes them - we're all aware of where the legitimate govt. of China fled after Mao's goons started getting the upper hand in their power grab. I'll shut up now lest this devolve into another political fracas.

Not certain, but I'd start by looking at JC Witless' website. They wouldn't have anything specifically Guzzi, but among all their generic stuff might be something adaptable.

The terms are closely related, but "handling" is specifically about ease of changing direction, response, liveliness, feel, where "driving" is all about progress, forward motion, being the pilot. Hard for me to even explain it, w/o resorting to a dictionary, which even then may not have a sufficiently different set of definitions. Am I clear enough in my explanation? This is definitely "handling!" Ride on!

OMG! I think I might have caught Ratch in an error! Last I knew, Cheng Shin [aka "Cheap Sh!t"] tires were Taiwanese. Also, AFAIK, the Maxxis off-shoot, while still being much worse than any of the big name [Dunlop, Metz', Mich', Pirelli, etc.] brands is a huge advance over the old line of C.S. tires, due to newer rubber formulations and rip offs of more modern tread designs... Of course, I could be wrong about all of this, but I seem to remember Cheng Shins being widely available in my youth [when dinosaurs still roamed the Earth & before Nixon had gone to knock on the Great Wall...] when America still had some production capacity of its own & embargoed just about everything from the 2nd world... Now, as far as the advisability of replacing barely broken-in 7 y.o. Bridgestones for new skins: heck yeah, w/ one exception; if you're using your bike for commuter service and only ride on warm, dry, clean roads, then you'll still be able to extract a lot of wear from those old shoes, barring obvious "toss me!" indicators like cracks in the sidewall as Ratchet' described! But not many live in that sort of ideal environment, & w/ winter coming on here in So. Cal., even I wouldn't keep'em unless I was planning on putting the bike away til Spring[1]. BTW, I also like the Metz' Z6 tires for a good mix of wear vs. traction. Ride on! [1] At which point I'd leave them on as "place holders" until I could throw on truly fresh rubber in the spring: no sense spending money on new tires I wouldn't be using for several months...

There's a difference between a water-cooled balls out sportbike and an air-cooled decent performing sport-standard or sport-tourer. Yes, I know that Piaggio/Guzzi is advertising the Norge as a "sport-tourer," but let's be honest: it's definitely leaning more to the GL1800 side of sport-tourer than say, the FJR1300 side. So yes, there's no way Guzzi is going to release a sport bike that is a patch on any of the Aprilia race-rep inspired models, but there's definitely room for something along the lines of the Le Mans [a name plate that has done very well for the company over the past 30 years, btw] w/ the new 4v engine. If Guzzi misses this obvious market niche, then they deserve to go the way of the dodo bird, imnsho. Hopefully, they'll give us what we want, & the world will beat a path to their door.

(emphasis added) That may be true for you Paul; I get the feeling that your awesome 6spd HiCam is mostly a track bike, but here in So. Cal. & anywhere else that someone is going to ride long stretches of highway w/ expansion joints every 10 or 20 ft ["corduroy roads" as I call'em], that 3.5kg off the rear wheel is FAR & AWAY more important that the mere 1.5kg off the front! Less unsprung wt. on the rear driveline means the hammering from the freeway expansion joints is decreased, as the wheel is better able to follow the square-edged bumps. For that reason alone, anyone doing substantial touring would want to look into at least getting the rear PVM, if at all possible. On a reread, I think Paul may have meant "To enhance handling, the front does it all..." - the subtle difference in connotation btw handling/driving in use would be hard for a non-native English speaker to detect. Heck, I can't even speak 'Murrican w/ all that much efficacy; I'm certainly not about to criticize Paul's excellent efforts! Thanks for the very valuable data point on the actual wt. differences btw the wheels, Paul!

Funny, from Pete's first reference to linishing here on V11LM, I just immediately understood it to be a combo of "lapping & polishing." Of course, if I'd never had any machine shop classes at the local junior college, I wouldn't have the foggiest what lapping or polishing really were or what they entailed...

Yes, smooth riders definitely do get better fuel & tire mileage. Rear tire lifetime is a complex function of right wrist activity, all up vehicle wt. & horsepower. Oddly enough, I would expect those who've made Greg's "Swiss cheese" mod to the cush drive wedges to experience significantly enhanced rear tire lifespans, as the movement of driveline hysteresis from being concentrated at the tire/road interface to being more spread out through the cush drive would have very beneficial f/x on the rear tire's ability to maintain traction under stop & go conditions. Put another way: you've said yourself that a significant portion of your riding time is commuter miles: the same rear tire that only lasts 5k in commuter driving will last 8k on tour, because the tire isn't subjected to repetitive speeding up & slowing down cycling, which heats the tire & wears the tread faster. Ride safe!

Here in CA esp., & anyplace else they have "winter fuel," the octane booster of choice has become alcohol(s), which have fewer kCals per volume ["BTUs/lb" for us hopelessly non-metric types ] than straight gasoline. This is outside of any other considerations like the difference in energy content btw gas & diesel fuel, but lower octane gas has some of that going on too. Moral of the story is: use the lowest octane fuel that your engine can safely use [no pinging, good performance] as paying extra for wasted octane rating does nothing for your engine. In modern cars w/ adaptive timing [knock sensors, oxygen sensors, closed-loop injection,] the ability of the ECU to change the timing to take advantage of higher octane fuels can mean that you'll get enough better fuel mileage on a higher grade of gas to outweigh the price difference. Only driven one car like that myself, where spending the extra $.05/gal for the mid-grade at my favorite station translated to substantial cost savings over time, but of course, it only worked because of the number of highway miles I was driving, range on a tankful & round trips that enabled me to fill up at that particular station...

Actually, not much out there is going to do a heck of a lot better on short hop, stop'n'go driving on a cold engine like your situation. Yes, hybrids & EVs will, because this scenario is exactly their forte: accelerate on battery power, regen braking at every stoplight, & by the time you actually get to work, the engine probably still hasn't even had to come on! You can try letting the bike warm up while you're putting on your riding duds & that may help some, but I don't know of any ICE-powered vehicle that gets better than 25mpg in traffic on a cold engine, short of a Vespa...

Just want to point out that the table of efficiency is where the big lie in this inherently biased document [produced by the Washing Electric Vehicle Assn.; this is like the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety's periodically self-serving "surveys" showing how dangerous motorcycles are, w/ the usual doctored & invalid statistics.] Sorry Dave, but this paper is pretty worthless. Esp. because it doesn't include the generally rather high lifetime energy costs of EVs vs. ICEs [talking cradle to grave here, not just energy consumed.] EVs make a lot of sense for short haul, stop & go (w/ regenerative braking) uses, and should definitely be part of the mix. Public transport esp. [electric urban buses] should be EV as much as possible, and e-bikes make a lot more sense than e-cars where doable. I certainly hope you'll convert to an e-bike for that 8mi each way commute: it sounds like a pretty ideal option! Anything under 5 miles one-way & I'd say stick w/ a push-bike: the exercise is beneficial and the 5 miles will not take too long to pedal for most folks. Ride on!

Obviously, you've never actually listened to the lyrics of The Little Old Lady from Pasadena! My mom used to drive like that, before she stopped driving due to Parkinson's. Never had a Super Stock Dodge in her garage, but she used to really hustle thru traffic in her old Rambler wagon! Upshot is, you normally ride less aggressively than the LOLFP! ;D Ride on!

So I was looking at the airbox lid this weekend [still waiting to put the finishing touches on it per Phil A's suggestions] & I had a sudden flashback to these images/thread & all the discussions about how the Guzzi Ti pipes look/work fab, but that their matching ecu seems to have fueling issues, & I thought: "Those pipes are sold as a 'track only' kit; I wonder if the map in the Ti ecu was developed w/ the idea that whoever was going to install it was also going to pull off the airbox lid, duct tape the filter in place & run the box topless?" If so, that would go a long way toward explaining the seeming counterintuitive changes to the Ti ecu's map, going richer where the stock ecu is already rich, etc. because the entire harmonics of the engine is going to change radically vs. just changing to a "slight decrease in backpressure" exhaust. Just a WAG at this point, but if someone w/ the Ti kit wants to try running it lidless & report back, that'd be grand...

How not? The V11 is just the Sport1100i mill w/ a new ECU & some minor refinements (6 spd gearbox chief among them), after all...

In further reading of one or the other of the 2 P.E. Irving out of prints I've currently got on loan, he states to adjust timing by turning the distributor -[EDIT] this should be "adjust the mechanical advance" to max advance, and then adjusting [insert "the distributor" here] for max power at 4000 rpm. Things to keep in mind: In any of his books, whether they state "Automobile" in the title or not, most of the contents are dealing w/ motorcycle engines, specifically 1- & 2-cylinder units of British manufacture. Accordingly, you're dealing w/ redlines in the 6k-8k rpm range, and torque peaks right around... (you guessed it) 4k rpm! All timing was done by breaker points w/ mechanical advancers. Just to put things in perspective. Great information, & it all seems dated until you think about it & realize that none of it is dated, it's just referencing dated long-stroke designs made of less advanced materials than today's all aluminum, water-cooled, high tech, short stroke products. But for tuning a Guzzi, this stuff is ideal, 'cause the design is still an ohv 2v, air cooled hemi head... w/ much more advanced fueling & ignition slapped on!