Skeeve

SP is a sport-tourer, not at all like a LeMon [aside from the overall similarity all Tonti-framed round barrels possess, which has led to all sorts of cobbled together fake LeManszeses being foisted off on the unwary.] Get the SP, fettle it & use it as your daily rider while you continue looking for your dream vintage LeMans...

Thanks for that tip; I've been meaning to try some experimentation w/ the Duplicolor mock anodize paint myself. Sorry your powder coating shop let you down.

Yeah, Oehlins [sorry, I don't have umlauts on my U.S. keyboard! You know the old joke * ] are racing equipment. Tighter, longer lasting seals = more sticktion = less compliance over the tiny bumps = losing the front end at 10/10ths speeds. Probably not a concern for our Guzzis, since they weigh in a good 50# over anything else the Oehlins get used on, & more avoirdupois = more traction. Ride on! * - "What do you call someone who speaks multiple languages? Multilingual or a polyglot. What do you call someone who speaks 2 languages? Bilingual. What do you call someone who speaks one language? English. What do you call someone who can't speak even one language (correctly)? An American!

Yeah, his Brevona is the square-sump 2v, which Guzzi dual-plugged to meet smog req's. on the penultimate evolution of Carcano's 700cc mill from 1965. 45+ years on pretty much the same bottom end: that's better than Harley's record by more than double!

Huh? 5 qts to the Imperial gallon, right? I get 32mpg [ie, multiply the Imp. mileage by .8 -> SAE, or the US mileage by 1.25 -> UK.] What am I doing wrong?

So, since the thermistor for air temp sensing is never going to get above about 40C, and I don't much expect to ride below about 5C, we can split the difference and average, multiply by the square root of -i, split the infinitive & dot the quarks, and just solder in a 4k ohm resistor to the airbox leads when converting to pods & expect the bike to run a little rich when it's hot outside [as insurance against pinging] and a little lean when it's cold out [to help keep the engine oil from turning into mayonnaise] & call it a day? Thanks!

W/ the stock intake horns? I see "complete" air boxes on eBay, but they're usually missing the critical pieces we're discussing...

Which Megacycle cam are you going to go with? Don't forget w/ the Ti pushrods, your clearances will tighten way up, since they don't expand w/ heat the same amount as the alloy stockers or aftermarket Chro-Mo ones will. IIRC, Pete Roper mentioned running close to 0 lash [on a stone-cold engine] with them on their classic Guzzi racer down in Oz, since once the engine heated up, that gave them their correct lash spec. Or maybe those were CF pushrods we were discussing? Hope your wait for the pistons is short!

Seems like FB already shut it down; your link takes me straight to my own FB home page, dang it!

Good point, Kiwi! Usually, when deleting the airbox for pods, the mod'er will reuse the velocity stacks from the stock airbox. If the PO didn't know to do this, then a pair of the spiffy alloy aftermarket jobs will look a lot better and probably be easier to find than an unmolested stock airbox to pull some plastic ones from. As far as the ECU question goes, AFAIK your only options are the Dynojet PCIII, one or two aftermarket reflash options, or a MyECU from Jeffries. The PCIII is easiest, because it's plug & play & there's a wealth of maps for V11s w/ pods already done up for you to download. Downside is electrical gremlins from the extra connections, but a little extra prep & dielectric grease should solve that for you.

http://www.cycleworld.com/2012/08/09/moto-guzzi-model-boxes article Got a kick out of this! The Otto Cilindri was a transversely-mounted, chain-final drive technical tour de force headed up by our favorite Guzzi engineer, Carcano in the early '50s when MG was still contesting [& winning] international GP road racing. What's wrong w/ this picture?

So, what would you use? (I actually use electronics cleaner, since brake parts cleaner is probably even worse than carb cleaner.) WD40? WD40 will work [it's essentially kerosene, so it tends to temporarily seal the leak and add some heavy fuel to a lean condition: idle goes up.] Starter fluid [aerosol ether; again, adding fuel to a lean condition, idle goes up. It will evaporate, so no clean up needed after testing.] Propane [from an unlit brazing torch; again, adding fuel, idle up. Like ether, no clean up needed after, but just remember to turn the torch off after use, so you don't get a garage explosion 1/2 hour after closing up the shed! ]

What does a pristine Daytona RS w/ similarly low mileage go for? I'd venture that should be a fairly good starting point for comparison. Good luck!

MPH is one of the few big Guzzi dealers stateside. They're down in Houston, TX. Todd Haven is the proprietor, iirc? [At least, I seem to recall he does all their web posting...] Not to be confused w/ Todd Eagen, he's in CA & runs the GuzziTech forum, reflashes the CARC ecus & offers some spendy Guzzi go fast parts. Pete's sloppage sheet is decidedly NON-spendy for a part that's manufactured in short runs, fixes a recall-worthy motor-killing shortcoming in the V11s' engineering, & is shipped from 1/2 the world away...

Don't worry about that: somewhere in the archives is a post by Greg Field (iirc) to the effect that someone once measured the amount of airbox pressurization achieved by the Spot/Sporti's airbox, and it only amounted to about 1/2 psi @ 100mph. Obviously, it would go higher as speed goes up, but it can't really be called "pressurization" so much as "compensating for sheer-induced vacuum in the airbox at speed." You've much bigger problems than that running pods, as any side-breeze will affect your jetting. [Airboxes are faster; pods look better. Que sera sera! ]

Love those Coppas!

Depends on what you call "food." The only time I went to a Hooters here in SoCal, the poor attitude of the wait staff*, delayed delivery of my order, unappetizing food and overpriced menu combined to make certain it was a singular event. * - How women who supposedly know they've been hired for their appearance should get their panties in a twist about actually being observed by their clientele is more scandalous than the tight t-shirts and hot pants of their uniforms, to me. If they don't like their job, they should go work somewhere else: there's plenty of other restaurants around who'd be happy to fire them for their incompetence in the actual performance of their duties!

Titan. Still a viable bike for vintage racing. Downside is it's a piston-port 2smoke, so wafer-thin powerband by the time you get done porting & piping the thing to make good peak power. There's a reason all the 500GP smokers were rotary-valved by the end... I have a 3 yr old daughter and lovely now and is the only reason I keep holding back on another bike, not wanting to be road kill. But I guess thats what they make the motorcycle safety foundation class for. Took it almost 20 yrs ago and probably time to do it again. No, that's what they sell life insurance for! The MSF basic course is just that: basic! If you've already been riding for any length of time, then take the ERC. If you're getting back into riding after a long time, still take the ERC: it'll just be a slightly tougher slog at first, until your parking lot skills get back up to speed. Other than that, sign up for a real track school: well worth the money, both on & off the track. [Helpful reminder too that all that scratching nonsense is better done on the track than on the public roads.] Best of luck w/ your goal! At least you'll find the wrenching part of keeping your Guzzi in fine fettle easy, what w/ that MMI background!

Well, that lower profile rear tire is going to lower the back of the bike ever so slightly, which would raise the beam a tad. Can't think it would be enough to get you to fail the test, tho'. Have you check to make sure the bulb is installed right side up? That would be a reason for your low beam to be shining up in the trees & your high beam to be normal... Best of luck, wish I had some helpful suggestion, but short of shimming the back of the headlight housing to tilt the beam down, I can't think of anything remotely pertinent...

Actually, I kinda like it. A far superior alternative to the selling of craptastic Brit bikes under the Indian brand back in the 50's that spelled doom for the marque due to the execrable QC on the imports. And, lest we forget, Indian does have a history of making longitudinal air-cooled shaft drive V-twins [under a WWII US military test contract; Do you think it's maybe true??? What you're saying could make a sort of sense, Skeeve. I've no idea if Piaggio/Guzzi would do such a thing. The funny thing is that contrarily, people have said the Guzzi badge should be slapped on other makes of bike e.g. a 'Guzzi' branded Aprilia sports bike, or a scooter.... Do I think Piaggio would do it, or do I think Polaris [the current owners of the Indian nameplate, iirc] would do it? Piaggio would do it if it made sense from an economies of scale [produce more small blocks = lower cost for all small blocks, making them more price competitive in a crowded market] perspective. I kinda doubt that "Indian" would go for this, simply because the present owners of the name almost certainly know nothing of the company history of making a long. v-twin, nor does the majority of the riding public: everyone everywhere associates Indian w/ flouncy transverse v-twins of gargantuan size & profligate chrome accoutrements. It's almost certainly just a hare-brained P'shop exercise...

This is great info; probably should be made a "sticky."

And Honda produces 18 million bikes a year, which seems like rather a real lot! I thought I was the V11 Le Mans Connecticut Owners Group until one popped up for sale recently on Craigslist. I hope it doesn't leave the State. Are there production numbers in any of Falloon's books? Anyone else out there? Bob Uh, hate to call your off the cuff statistic into question, but when Harley-Davidson was making 200,000+ bikes a year at their peak a few years ago and Honda was in 2nd place, that's about 2 orders of magnitude off from your #. And lest we forget, probably 1/2 of that # for Honda is the umpty-umpth generation of the lowly Cub ["You meet the nicest people on a Honda..." c.1959], which only surpassed the 50 million produced mark a few years ago [making it the most produced vehicle EVER by almost a factor of 2 (~27 million VW Beetles {the original, not the Golf in swoopy bodywork they're making now} in 2nd position) I seem to recall Falloon quoting that at their peak post-Aprilia, Guzzi was making ~5000 bikes a year [& more than 1/2 of that # were the cruiser models of all types, including small blocks = probably closer to 3/4] so as has been stated before, even the standard V11 models @ I seem to recall that just before the worldwide economic collapse in '08 that Piaggio was setting a target of 10k Guzzis for the year. Problem w/ producing so many bikes is finding buyers for them in a crowded market when the Euro is strong against other currencies. Seems that may have been a major factor in their decision to shutter the factory for a year & remodel...

See if you can find a parts fiche specific to the LM Tenni models; that pump location was standard on the Tennis.

Actually, I kinda like it. A far superior alternative to the selling of craptastic Brit bikes under the Indian brand back in the 50's that spelled doom for the marque due to the execrable QC on the imports. And, lest we forget, Indian does have a history of making longitudinal air-cooled shaft drive V-twins [under a WWII US military test contract;

Aka, the V11*, the Spot** or the Sporti*** [or, in chronological order of release, the Spot, Sporti & V11 Sport.] * - Because that's what the factory called it, to distinguish the evolutionary updates from the previous generation sport model twin-valve 1100s. ** - Because when reading the model name written in a script font on the tail of the carb Sport, the "r" is kind of vestigial, and it is easily mis-read as "Spot 1100" instead of "Sport 1100." *** - Because to distinquish the updated EFI Sport from the previous carb'd model, the factory changed the name to "1100 Sport i."