Skeeve

I like knives well enough, and have carried one daily since I was about 6 years old. Of course, if I was a kid in school nowadays I'd be setting off the metal detectors & getting expelled & all. But a simple 2.5" blade pocket folder is all I need: no "fantasy" blades for me! Kitchen knives I leave in the kitchen, machetes are gardening tools & live in the garage w/ the saws & shovels. Sorry you had to deal w/ an @sshat like that, but unless he pulls a knife or other weapon on you first, you'd be in big legal trouble to even brandish one of yours in response to his threats [at least, that's how it works in our completely screwed up legal atmosphere here in the PRK... ] Nonetheless, I'm less likely to go outside in my underwear than I am to step out the door w/o my universal tool in my pocket. Good luck w/ your neighbor.

For the same wt., a hollow tube is stiffer than a solid bar, since the stiffness goes up as a product of the diameter of the piece [obviously, a solid bar is a smaller diameter for the same wt.] Unsprung wt. is a big deal in suspension; that's why nobody races a shaft drive bike in MotoGP or SBK any more... back in the 70s when the LM1 & LM2 were effective [& still are in vintage racing], the suspension was so bad anyway it hardly mattered. Also, chains didn't last as long & weren't as strong # for # (or kg 4 kg) as they are now. A high quality DID 520 chain of today can do what it took a high quality 630 chain in the 70s to do, and last 2x longer in the process! Of course, it costs 5x as much, but once you adjust for constant $ it's only 2 or 3x as expensive... So basically, the answer to your question is "for greater stiffness" which = better handling & longevity. Yeah but: since the RSV sold in greater numbers, is there a Fenda Xtenda that is made to fit? As opposed to having to adapt models made for other bikes as V11 owners have to do now [i believe one that's supposed to work on Guzzi fenders is the Yammie FJ11?]

That was what I was going to point out WRT the "bottleneck" comment above. Actually, the "bottleneck" isn't at the neck just above the valve head indicated by the arrow in the pic of the intake mold, it's at the similar point just before the "bowl" where all the valve guide paraphenalia clutters up the port. Ports should narrow gradually throughout their length to the point just below the valve head [as indicated by the arrow: this is exactly where the narrowest part of the intake port should be!]; that choke point just before the intake gets to the "bowl" needs to go, but only on the outside curve of the tract; the inside curve should certainly not be made any tighter! Smooth, gradual changes are what air likes...

What did you use to make the mold? Just curious if we have it widely available here in the States...

This brings up a side topic [not to make light of your situation! I feel for you, my Guzzi brother! ], but after moving lots of bikes in the back of my pickup, the procedure I follow is thus [note: only good for carrying one motorcycle at a time in the back of my compact p/u]: Load bike along rt side of bed, w/ front wheel angled into front left of bed. Try to get the steering to full lock (this may require dragging the rear wheel over to the left a bit.) Put bike on sidestand [anyone ever notice that motorcycle sidestands are always on the left? This is a holdover from horseback riding, where you always mount/dismount on the left! Kinda like the standard railroad gage is a holdover from Roman chariot tracks... ] Cinch bike down on the left side, against support from sidestand. Minimum two tiedowns, both anchored to truck fwd of the sidestand. Tight as you can, altho' you may need to go a little easy on the front for now, unless you've got one of those nifty gadgets they sell for dirtbikes to prop between tire & lower triple clamp, and have removed your front fender! -- This will nevertheless pull the bike forward into the pocket at the left front of the bed fairly snug. Cinch two tiedowns around the rear wheel, one to each corner at the back of the bed, & haul away till good & taut. -- This stabilizes the bike fore/aft so that it can't roll off the sidestand no matter how much the wild ride may compress the forks! Now cinch down the rt side of bike. (1 or 2 tie downs) -- Because of tension already supplied on left & aft of bike, these both can run to front rt anchor of truck bed, if no mid-bed anchor is available. This may also lift the bike toward center enough to actually put sidestand back up, but I usually leave it down so that I can't forget it when untying at the end of trip... If you kept track, you can see it takes a minimum of 5 tiedowns [6 is better] to anchor a bike well enough to not expect it to flop over at the 3rd left/right turn on your trip! I've also managed w/ one 50ft piece of 1/2" nylon rope [which nobody w/ a pickup should ever be w/o! ], but it's a PITA & you'll have about 6' - 8' of loose rope left over flopping around, plus it'll loosen up considerably by 5 minutes into the trip so either pull over & retighten or limit yourself to short slow trips, & you'd better have read the Klutz's Book of Knots & know what a trucker's hitch is or you're doomed w/ only rope for tying down! Anyone else have modifications/additions/revisions to contribute to my description? Have at it! Ride on,

Who's paint codes [ie, what protocol: Dupont? CIBA-Geigy? Aboriginal face paint? ] are these? Very cool to supply them; a pic of the dried/cured paint next to a color photo test card [the one w/ various color squares and a large neutral (18%) gray patch is best] would be nice. If that can be done, then definitely it should be made a sticky or perhaps moved to a separate "standards forum" w/ other data like torque values, etc. Regardless, that's some useful data you've shared w/ us: thanks!

Something to bear in mind: Piaggio's 1st move upon taking control of Guzzi was to "end of line" all the spineys & consolidate. You can't say they're "no improvement on the predecessor" unless they haven't managed to keep ready parts supply for the new generation quotards & the residual tontis in the lineup of "current" models [brevona, Griso, Cali Classic, Norge, etc.] Not that I think this is right, I'm just sayin' that by Piaggio's reckoning, they aren't required to keep parts in supply for those old models that they've publicly announced they no longer support... Ride on,

That's all fine & dandy, but what did that 20% improvement on top do to the bottom-end & midrange? Was this a "they should all come this way from the factory!" improvement, or "Guzzi got it right for around town, but yeeeeHAW this things great WFO!" sort of change? I'm just sayin'... WRT to the flow bench measurements: That certainly is revealing that after more than 20 years of development, Guzzi hasn't been able to move the numbers much. Of course, some of the "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" axiom may apply...

Care to do one of your wonderful long explanations of what all this is about, with the 27 8x10 color glossy photographs w/ pictures & arrows on the back of each one for those of us in the peanut gallery who haven't a clue? When you have a chance, I understand it's summer down under & you've got far too much riding to do to be messing around on the computer right now...

Ohhhh, yeah! I was lucky enough to be traveling during the dollar's highest point since the 60s, so it wasn't that painful for me, but even at that, I recognized that the prices were higher for just about everything than most of the other countries I'd been in to that point... Orgy borg? Well, since I was traveling there post-Chernobyl & pre-Mad Cow breakout, I alternately blame radiation poisoning & MOOOO, DAMMIT! er, what was I saying? Oh, yes: I occasionally blame my swiss-cheesed memory on the dumb heifers taking their revenge out on my carnivorous lifestyle choice...

If you look at the picture again, it's pretty clear that the front of the oil pan is resting on the rightmost of the two arms of the ATV lift [if you were looking down at the lift from above in the position you would be when using it], while the Dunwell attachment is fastened to the leftward of the two lift arms and catching the frame under the porkchops. [sorry for the shoddy description; just go back up to Carl's post & look at the pic again! ]

I've been to Bodo [sorry, no patience for looking up the appropriate diacritic characters, this ain't a Mac I'm workin' on here! Anyway, say "Buddha" and you'll have the correct pronunciation] & on to Narvik, but unfortunately, not by bike; all this was many moons ago when some of our youngest members were but yet a twinkle, and the 1000S was still years from production. [sigh...] Anyway, about the only Norvege word I got out of the trip was "Nye," which means of all things, "Yes!" - a fine lesson in "beware of false friends" when exposed to any new language... Best part of that train ride [from Oslo, a long looong way south!] was arriving in Bodo and hiking to the hostel in what looked to be late afternoon sunlight, to be greeted with a cheerful "You two want to share a room?" [traveling w/ gf of the time; all the other hostels to that point had separated guy/gal barracks], settling in, and then having gf say "I can hardly keep my eyes open to read my novel" [stoopid Danielle Steele tripe, but hey, at least she was reading!] to which my exhausted-attempting to sleep-but still rather witty reply was "That's because it's after midnight; shut the d@mn drapes & go to sleep! ;D Norway is a beautiful country, I'd love to travel it by motorcycle some summer!

22mm is only .225mm less than 7/8"; that's only about .866", which is well within most production tolerances for 7/8" (.875") bars & controls, I'm guessing. For all practical purposes, approximating pi by using 22/7 is about the same sort of imprecision as swapping 22mm & 7/8". Yeah, they aren't equal by any stretch, but there's such a thing as "close enough." Now, for missions to Mars, swapping SAE & metric isn't kosher: for attaching bicycle parts to your moto bar mounts, yeah, it's within tolerances...

The restriction is too much volume, so that the exhaust gases expand, cool down, increase density, & lose velocity. That's why the aftermarket x-overs work better, even tho' there's minimal actual crossover to some of the designs. The correct diameter of the x-over tube would be 2^1/3 [that's the cube root of 2] times the diameter of the head pipes or muffler pipes [they're the same size], which amounts to a very minimal increase in size; the stock x-over isn't so much a crossover as it is a pre-muffler [which is why in one of my early posts to v11LM I incorrectly surmised that this was where the catalytic converter was hidden... NOT! ] Best approach to modding the stock x-over would be to open, clean out the innards ['cause otherwise all that carbon contaminating the welds to the stainless will cause it to fail in short order] and weld in some finely perforated plates from top to bottom on the rt & lt sides of the box to maintain greater straight thru flow from rt header to rt muffler & vice versa. I hope that description is clear enough! Alternatively, you can use the stocker to make a nice jig, so that you can duplicate the design of the Stucchi x-over w/o [hopefully!] running into fit-up problems once you're done... That may be, in fact, the best use for the stocker, since you'd almost certainly end up losing some weight by going to a less complicated piece a la' Stucchi's x-over.

Yoiks! Those are some pretty pathetic springs indeed! Doing the math, it looks like about 9 coils would have to be cut from the 23 [and an appropriate spacer crafted to recreate the 293mm [11.5"] OAL...] to bring the spring rate up into the vicinity of the 1.0kg/mm [55.8#/in] deemed best for normal-sized N.A. males from the estimated .6kg/mm [33.5#/in] stockers.* Ride on! *: Fun thing about the math; since the wire dia. and OD are the same on both sides, they drop out, and since one of the means/extremes is unit (1.0kg/mm), you just end up multiplying the number of coils by the .6 to end up w/ the new number of coils needed. Whee! Of course, I'm probably wrong, and I'm going to have to check my back-of-an-envelope estimate against a proper spring-rate calculator - thanks for the numbers, Ratchet! - but for right now, it seems likely. This calculation is of course ignoring important other considerations like spring bind, etc...

Not sure what you mean here, Greg: surely you realize that Guzzi hasn't acknowledged any problem w/ the aluminum units in the Scuras, so the dealer can't really do anything wrt unilaterally deciding to replace the Scura's lightened unit if it's out of the 2yr warrantee? Or did you mean that since any dealer who's swapped out a Cali steel single-plate under warrantee will still have it sitting around and could swap it in to replace the Scura Al-clutch, and it wouldn't be problematical since the Scura has a hydraulic clutch, vs. the cable-clutch on the Calis that proved to be the real source of trouble with the steel single plate clutchs wearing too fast? Anyway, despite my confusion, your input is always valuable; please don't think I'm zinging you!

The big problem being that ins. co's are profit-oriented entities, as opposed to joint-risk coops, which is where the whole premise of "insurance" gets it's start. The risk-reduction premise of insurance is best illustrated by a school of fish: the odds that a predator [in this case, an accident] striking any one member [risk pool participant] is reduced [cost is spread across all members] to a degree that every individual's net risk is substantially less than trying to go it alone. Insurance companies, otoh, have lots of expensive executives' & board members' salaries to pay, plus the shareholders like to see a bit of profit in the form of dividends every quarter. It strikes me that a co-op joint risk setup could save members SUBSTANTIAL lucre over the long term. Or, it could be set up just like every other ins.co., only upon joining you pay a membership fee & get a share of stock, so the profits every year come back to you in some small part. Whatever, just rambling on at the mouth (keyboard) again...

Just one of the most beautiful bikes ever made! [Altho' I am somewhat partial to the lemony yellow version my friend PEter Coronado used to own... maybe it's because it was the 1st Guzzi I ever got to ride? ] Love the billet porkchops, especially: does anyone out there in v11LM-land know if the billets are 100% interchangeable with the late production red casties? I could really go for some of those to dress up my 2003...

Not gold, per se, but thnk about the low production numbers Guzzi has been putting out up until the releases of the past two years, and the historically poor parts supply, etc. I've seen bikes on eBay that are relatively minor cases of roadrash w/ "salvage" titles because the ins. co's wrote them off. Accordingly, I'm guessing the ins. co's. just class Guzzis as "exotics" and figure any accident is going to be a total write-off, and charge accordingly high rates. Once Guzzi's sales numbers are consistently high and if Piaggio can fix the parts supply problem, then you might start seeing rates similar to those for Ducks and Bimmers. Of course, you'll never see rates as low as those for Hogs [which seem to have the lowest parts prices of any Bike out there, and moreover, have an aftermarket that allows the buildup of a Hog w/ never even buying an "official" factory frame! ] Best o' luck, & remember that with the sales success of the Griso, in a year or two they'll have actuarial tables based solely on that model, and your rate may go down (or up! ) accordingly...

Which is probably why, as of this time, the new "flat-tracker" model is only going to be offered in Europe. It is a non-starter for N.A. [Well, I don't know if Canada is grouped by H-D as part of U.S. sales or European sales; the Canucks may get a bunch of these only to have them bought up by ugly 'Murricans for importing back where they started from! ] Ride on!

Thanks for that info, Pete: I'll keep it in mind...

Another Guzzi advantage: due to the car-like dry clutch design, you can use car-like modern "friction modified" yak fat available at any stop'n'rob. 99&44/100% of other motorcycles have to avoid that stuff like the plague, or end up w/ slipping clutches...

As I've posted repeatedly, Guzzi could stand to apply some of the engineering fundamentals that H-D used to update their engines starting back in '84... The only real advantage Harley has over Guzzi is in the combustion chamber. Harley has an advantage on meeting emissions vs. MG in that their under-square engine means they've got comparatively more time to complete combustion before the exhaust valve opens. The noise issue also benefits from the long-stroke Harleys use: lower peak rpm means you can use hydraulic lifters w/o negative performance affects, quieting valve clatter. We all know the route Guzzi went instead; decrease valve lash specs [fortunately, those of us here in the U.S. can revert to world-spec settings on our own... ] And the fuel mileage comes back to better combustion chamber design; a more efficient burn means you can go leaner on the fuel before running into issues w/ ping, etc. Look at pics of the 1200 heads & imagine that chamber on a v11 mill instead of the hemi-head Guzzi used (uses.) Heck, even Dodge(Daimler-Chrysler) doesn't even use a true hemi-head anymore - they just trademarked the name for advertising purposes! [smart, that... ] All of which just makes me think more & more about getting a set of Mike Rich's pistons for the v11, which seem to be about the best that can be done short of a very ex$pen$ive combustion chamber redesign...

You are clearly an individual of great refinement and taste. Ride safe!

Funny you should bring this up; it just happened to me about 2 weeks ago on the oil change for my 'zook! Luckily, the filter is external, so when starting up and seeing a sudden spurt of oil jetting past my left boot, I was able to shut down the motor soon enough? to prevent serious damage [i hope! Still doesn't sound as good as it did, but that may be 90% all mental...], and of course, I'll be checking on this for *any* oil change henceforth! FWIW, this is a disadvantage stemming from use of the stock filter; the Purolator filter I replaced it with uses an O-ring instead of a gasket like the stock filter. O-rings don't stick to the block better than the can, the way rubber gaskets do...