Skeeve

Oh, I spend a lot of my time sheperding gun threads over on the LABiker listserve. Seriously, I find trying to convince the willfully deceived of their judgmental errors to be such a Sysyphean task of futile thanklessness that I derive little pleasure from its essay. Having been held up at gunpoint, tied up, and nearly had my head blown off by the perp who was too completely stupid to follow clear directions on how to find a safe that he couldn't have gotten into anyway, I have little patience for those too stupid to realize that gun banning only affects the law-abiding citizenry, and that if I'd been aware at the time that it was legal to go heeled at your place of business under the laws of Olde California [the band of charlatans in Sacramento not having had time from their rape of the public coffers to change this... yet!], the world would be one @sshole fewer, and probably more [my having no knowledge of how many illegitimate progeny he has left behind, dependent upon the public coffers and almost predestined to follow him down that particular career path..] Fight the good fight, Rachet, but be forewarned: you will not be thanked for trying to open the eyes of those who so diligently try to keep them screwed shut!

Yes: his bias extends to using statistics to generate data, instead of lies. It's a bias I share strongly enough that my friends & relatives will no longer let me watch tv news, since I start yelling & laughing like a maniac anytime they throw charts up on the screen. You may find it hard to believe, but even the most right-leaning news source (Fox) is far, far, far to the left of John F. Kennedy's politics. We've slid a long way, baby, down that slippery slope! His methods were reprehensible, but Joe McCarthy did prove how pervasive and effective the Leninist methodology of subverting higher education and thence the media had become. Still is. Will continue to be, as long as the students of the 1st wave of Potemkins are still in charge... Most modern economists are, according to the leftist-media poisoned minds of the majority of the population, "right wing." This is because the Austrian school has completely demolished the Keynesians, who left us with the permanent-inflation, NWO economic model we're all currently suffering under. A far greater chance than you, my friend, a far greater probability than you. The FBI scale, like most government statistics, is designed to make you think your tax dollars are being spent wisely, no more, no less. It has very little to do with reality. Ride on!

Nice to hear that, Mr. T! Anyway, is there any way you can make that link in your .sig clickable? Seems like that would be a sure way to drum up some biz, after a post like that! Yes, I really am that lazy[1] that I won't copy & paste it into the browser bar to go to your site... Ride on! [1] No, not really: but I'm very aware that some people are, so I just thought I'd drop the tip!

Thanks! Do all year v11s come w/ the bakelite holder, & Guzzi just sells a brass replacement for those who experience trouble, or do later/earlier models have one vs. the other? Just curious what the breakdown for this type of, well, breakdown is!

Sorry 'bout that; it's been corrected. Bad copy & paste...

One thing that I don't recall seeing you enumerate in your upholding of John Lott's studies of gun control is that Mr. Lott himself was a proponent of gun control when he started his statistical research! He was discouraged by the poor foundation that gun control was based upon & hoped to provide a solid scientific basis from which to proceed. Once he discovered the truth in the course of his research, he realized how wrong he'd been & began to come around to the side of gun owners, since that was what the facts substantiated. Gotta admire someone with that much intellectual honesty... Ride on!

Seriously, where is the temp sensor? All I ever see are pics of pieces parts, never where this thing is found in situ...

Don't have a Griso dyno chart; from reports, I just don't expect them to have the flat, flat torque curve your Cobra is putting out. I guess the "different length" headers is just an optical illusion; better look for the answer somewhere else then... The Dyno Gallery thread is here. Yes, more power = spinning the motor faster or having higher BMEP. Shorter stroke & lighter valvetrain components allow the former; more valve port area might get you the latter, but it requires keeping the intake velocity up: that's where the valve overlap & a proper 2->1 header design comes in! Kudos on the results you've managed from the Cobras, Enzo. Don't fall into the trap of going snorkleless on the sock filters: air doesn't like turning sharp corners! Ride on,

Placentia, an hour north of S.D? My, but the CHiPpies must sure love you come the end of the month when they're hard up to make their quota! In a truck or van w/ a Bike in the back, you'll be looking at 1.5 hours at best between S.D. (proper) & Placentia. Heck, it takes me 45 min. in light traffic, & I'm only in southern OC! Of course, I'm of an age that I can remember when it was only an hour from Placentia to Sandy Eggos, but that's been a long, long, time past... :\

I love the unsuspecting look on this guy as he fills his tank with diesel (green handle, stateside)...

I wonder if the PHAAAT bottom end & torque peak @ lower rpm than stock [check the dyno charts thread; seems like V11s torque peak is above 7k rpm, the cruiser/CAs being down around the 6k you're experiencing...] are related to the Cobra's merging on the right vs. the Griso pipe's left-hand merge, ie: the Cobra has a longer header for the left cylinder vs. Griso has longer rt. side exhaust tract. Due to the Guzzi firing order, this subtle difference could have a profound affect upon the resulting powerband. No offense to your efforts Enzo, you know I've been very interested in & respectful of your experiments, but you'll have to excuse my suspicion that the Guzzi factory engineers know more about this topic than you, & would be trying to milk the most h.p. out of the stock configuration for the Griso (if only because their continued livelihood depends upon the factory selling a lot of Grisos!) and so made the choice to run the 2->1 collector on the left side of the bike for that reason. Neither the Cobra pipes nor the Griso have equal length headers, the way the Dr. John endurance racer replica pipes have [pics of which I've seen elsewhere on this site in old threads.] Clear as mud? Trust ol' Mr. Gizzard to 'splain things as obfuscatingly as possible!

The horns on the airbox clearly aren't as restrictive as people seem to think; Gordon Jennings in his Sportbike Performance book talks about how back in the 70s, there was some race series that required an intake restriction of xx dimension per cylinder (let's call it an inch - 25mm to make it easy to visualize, and suitably "restrictive.") He pointed out that Yamaha found that their TZ750 wound up making only some piffling amount less [1? 2 ponies?], after the engineers got finished fiddling around. How did they manage this magic? By putting the restriction about a foot (call it .4m for you metrical types) behind the carbs, waaaay a the back of the airbox, with a looong, shallow angle horn leading up to & away from the point of restriction. At any rate, back to the subject at hand: swissing (as in cheese w/ holes in it! ) the airbox: If the redline is 8k rpm, and the engine is a 4-stroke so there's one intake cycle per 2 rotations and 1 minute/60 secs, that equals: 8000 rotations/min * 1 cycles/ 2 rotations * 1 min/60secs = 800/12 cycles per sec or 66.6667 hz natural intake frequency , which is a nice basso profundo note, just above the 60hz "bottom" of the normal range of human hearing. This is the "honk" that we love so much from our geese! Now, 1080 fps / 67 hz = 16.1 ft Obviously, we can't fit a hole 16.12 ft long in our airbox! So we divide by 4 (I won't go into it, but it has to do w/ harmonic reinforcement, & why you can have a stubby little rubber coated antenna on your car that pulls in as well as the long whippy steel OEM one...), divide by 4 again, and again, to end up with a hole size of about 3 in for "best sound." Naturally, you'll be getting all sorts of other harmonics being reinforced as well, since we had to do so many of the 1/4 wave reductions. Now, mix in a few 1.87 in holes (our 3in hole divided by phi, the golden ratio) and 1.15 in holes (again with the phi), & you should get a nice pleasing chord of intake music, instead of just that nasty roar of high-frequency random sh!t...

"Not 'the Craw', The CRAW!" - the Claw, to Maxwell Smart Hey, Greg has a new nickname! Instead of 'that author guy", he's now... THE CRAW!

Ghezzi Brian completed a full development of the idea some 20 or so years later: Well, rather not, since in this case the sheetmetal box is just that, a sheetmetal airbox? (maybe gas tank?), as opposed to the structural unit I was alluding to in my post. But thanks for the great pix of the stripped down MGS-01!

He must have had some experience w/ using a .45 in action, & hated being stuck w/ that wimpy Yuro-peen caliber... [all in jest - the BHP/P35/whatever you want to call John Browning's last pistol is one of the best pointing & pleasing handguns ever made. Haven't shot one in .40 Short&Weak, but maybe I should... ]

2nd'ed on how sucky anything by Mick Walker is [altho', I admit he's got some great photo archives so one or two of the pics in his books are worth more than all the text put together...], as well as a 2nd on Ian Falloon's excellent output. Again, strongly 2nd'ed. To make my case further: I got my library to interlibrary loan me everything I could find on Guzzi, so I had a chance to read these books for little more than being patient. I now own Greg's book, as it's well worth the price! I can't comment on any Tony Foale/Dr. John provenance issues wrt inventing the spine frame, altho' I'm curious as to why they never took the spine frame to it's obvious conclusion, which on a Guzzi would be a sheetmetal box of triangular cross-section, to make most effective use of the space between cylinders while providing greater rigidity & lighter weight? Yes, it would be more ex$pen$ive to set up initial production, since it would require extra fabrication vs. just buying rectangular steel tube in 3m lengths, but I would think they would have at least experimented with it, if only because of Dr. John's ties to endurance racing... One of life's little unsolved mysteries... Ride on!

Ni! The epoxy used for CF will eventually break down over time & exposure to heat, chemicals, etc. UV is the biggest enemy, of course, but a sloppage sheet wouldn't be seeing much of that in use... At any rate, shedding little bits of carbon into your oil wouldn't be a good plan for your Guzzi 20 years down the road, so let's just stick w/ steel...

Of course! We're all fellow spine-frame orphans, now that Mama Guzzi has moved on to her next generation of bikes... 1: the thing you have to remember, is that the vast majority of Harley riders these days are RUBbies, who're not daily riders, and frequently experiencing sensory overload when they do get out and ride. You really don't want someone who's just borderline stable/in control taking their hand off the bar to wave @ and target fixate on you, do you? 2: the HiCams are known for running hot, from what I hear. Not enough airflow to that piston crown w/ that busy, busy head... 3: WD40, the liquid toolkit! 4: HiCams are also known for having a lot of top-end noise: what do you expect? 2x the valves, man! I'm not known for being a fan of the Centauro's styling, but I do love the looks of the HiCam engine. Your bike looks excellent; glad she's found someone who appreciates her & wants to get things sorted!

I'm guessing that to get an approximation of the RM colour for my valve covers, I'm going to have to get a rattlecan of something shiny [yes, Virginia: they do make "chrome" paint...] and lay that down as a base layer before going to my local Rite-Aid and strolling down the fingernail polish aisle to find the correct shade of "red" to match the porkchops... Anyone else have a bright idea? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?

Where you live, DeBen? I know that some states have restrictions on type of firearm (shotguns), but that's due to population concerns (not wanting downrange problems.) I know some places just have an energy requirement ("XXXX foot-#s at 100yds") which of course, the S&W X-frame just loves... Other states will have a minimum caliber requirement, which of course, 'causes little concern for the S&W either. What's all this got to do w/ motorcycling? I dunno; pretty soon, we'll have to start salting this thread w/ suggestions on how to pack your deer home on the back of your Goose!

IIRC, the OP stated that the odometer reads correctly, but that if you reset the trip meter & then ride til the odo reads +10mi, your tripmeter will read 12? or so; he did the math & it turned out that the trip meter reads in 2km "mile" increments. Net results: If you calculate mpg using the tripmeter, you'll always be ecstatic with the great mileage your Guzzi is getting; if you actually calculate the corrected mileage from the odometer, you'll be... underwhelmed. If you use your tripmeter as a "miles before empty" indicator, it all comes out in the wash, since you'll have "calibrated it" by carrying a small (filled) gas can on the back, filled the fuel tank, reset the trip meter, & then ridden your Guzzi dry. Noting the tripmeter at that point [let's say it read 240mi], filled from your little gas can and then driven to a gas station so you can really fill the tank. Henceforward, you know that you can go ) assuming will at least be repeatable... ]

WRT: Griso&Breva engine sump redesign vs. v11 motors: Try this: It clearly shows that: 1) the oil pickup is an inverted hemispherical cup 2) the pickup is surrounded by cofferdams, meaning it lives in the bottom of its own semi-private sump within the sump, somewhat immune to sloshing 3) the oil filter now lives in its own little dry box within the sump, which has? has not? a manhole cover, but at least one never needs to drop the pan in order to change the oil filter, nor even has to drain the oil to change the filter! Cool... not necessarily pertinent, but cool! Ride on! PS: thanks for taking the time to try to clarify this topic for all us non-mechanical types, Pete! You rock!

Agreed. And chances are, that someone isn't as likely to modify one of those pearls, because they're going to do their homework, or take it for help to someone who has, and realize that they can sell their pearl to a collector for enough to pay for their next couple of blenderized base models. Get ready for this: so can the remodeled gun! After all, the parts removed are largely going to find their way to fleaBay, and down the road, the chopped & flamed hot rod may find it's way to a pawnbroker or gunshop where someone who needs the action can get it. Ain't recycling grand? Those numbers you quote are for the pearls: all numbers matching, stocks that aren't chewed to hell, etc. Let's face it: those examples have always had low numbers! The reason the Krags sat in barrels is because they couldn't be modified to take more modern, higher pressure cartridges due to their single-lug bolt and the less-than-superlative metallurgy of 19th century arms makers, and at the time, nobody wanted some dumb ol' turn of the last century rifle that couldn't handle the 30'06. BTW, prices were higher (in constant dollars) back before the auto-weapons ban back in the mid-80s (which also allowed reimportation of military arms that had been banned by GCA '68) than they are now; what you're seeing now is decreasing supply against a rather level demand pushing prices up. The basic actions of these weapons are "quality;" just as we pay extra for Guzzis vs. their competitors because of their traditional design, these old rifles were built of machined receivers, craftmanship and intended to last several generations. Yes, they're "beaters" because they've been abused, but it's like an old loop-frame: the bones are there to take it down to bare metal, & rebuild it, better than it was before, faster, stronger - and for a WHOLE lot less than $6mil! To put it in perspective: in 1945, an M1 Garand cost the U.S. govt (iirc my stats correctly) about $46. You can't touch one of it's progeny (Springfield, Inc.'s M1-A, made to a lower quality standard) for less than 20x that today! Nickel Ads, huh? You must be in the Pac NorthWet... Sure, I'll buy that. Unfortunately, those "finders specials" are scarce on the ground, & usually go to the guy working behind the gun store or pawn counter when they come in. Sorry, haven't got the time to be constantly searching for those deals, esp. when there are (were) $80 8mm Mausers crying for someone to take them in, clean'em up, & rebarrel them to something interesting after they've gotten tired of running corrosive surplus 8mm thru them... It's kinda like buying a crashed sportbike that you then run around as your daily driver waiting for that sticky valve to finally decide to kick, since you know you're just going to tear it all down to rebuild as your track bike when it does... Don't be ridiculous! Of course I can! This is AMERICA! Only in your mind. If they're no good for resale, they'll end up as $2 muzzle-loaders in Bannermans, until a generation or two later, the "reenactors" start paying big money for them so they can round out their "kit." Meanwhile, some kid w/ not a lot of money, but lots of energy & time has taken one or two home, experimented, and developed a nifty sabot round or a revised ignition system using shotgun primers that he sells to all the BP hunters [who're only using BP in order to extend their hunting season, unlike all the "traditionalists" who turn up their noses & frown at all the new-fangled gimmickry, & go back to coming home meatless with their replica flintlocks [whom the replica matchlock fanciers cannot abide for their betrayal of real reenactment... ] Really? Then collect away! Better get to it before I do, 'cause about the only interest I have in a Moisin-Nagant that isn't already G-D accurate is converting it to a bolt carbine firing a nice thumper like 45LC or 44Mag. But that's just me... True. But Scuras started off as a "limited edition," so you're not likely to find someone taking their Scura & then, for instance, trying to turn it into one of the "Telaio Rosso" wannabes. OTOH, my taking an 1896 Moisin-Nagant and turning it into a nifty little bolt-action carbine firing a heavy pistol round doesn't affect the price that much (except that I, inDUHvidually would achieve a loss in value, since I took a pre-1899 antique that doesn't require transfer docs and only has significant greater value because of this fact & turned it into something that legally would), barring the fact that I may find another buyer who wouldn't have paid the initial price for that same M-N, but fancies that little bolty carbine very much. Ya never know... Heh! That was cute... As do I, in an all original, non-parts-blendered firearm that is of historical significance. In the list of rifles you provided with the high prices, didja notice the %age that were from the "winning" sides? Hm, the Finns captured a bunch of clunky Soviet (Belgian) rifles & turned'em into something pretty darn hot. The Brits won the War to End All Wars with the SMLE. The U.S. crushed Fascism in WWII, held back Communism in Korea, & armed the rest of the free world with the Garand. The 03A3 wasn't even all that *popular* until Saving Private Ryan came out. Hmm. Methinks we've got a communications problem. If it's holding better'n 2moa w/ surplus ammo, it ain't hardly "shot out," is it? Thank goodness you don't own a 10/22! Next thing you'd be telling me is not to "butcher" it by dropping in a target hammer... Yep. No man is an island (or rather, we all are, but we're in a crowded archipelago!) Fact is, that most of the surplus guns of which we're debating undeniably do have poor sights, from the standpoint of useability and clarity; the outstanding exceptions being those of the Garand, '03A3 & P17 Enfield [oddly enough, all of US extraction, & all with sights incorporating lessons learned in WWI...] but let's not get too caught up in details [as I'm certain all the other non-firearms owning motorcyclists reading this thread are more than ready for us to do! ] Sorry if my stance on this issue offends you. I'll have to buy a stripped M1 receiver from the CMP & send it to Fulton Armory for the full match treatment in your honor, just 'cause restoring it to better-than-original-but-not-historically-correct-condition will probably sending you screaming over a cliff in horror... Ride on, PS - No, I have no idea why my quoting of your text is no longer showing up properly. Jaap?

Pushrods are reciprocating mass, just like valves & valve springs. The more mass involved, the greater the loads on the valvetrain [anyone here want to talk about cam failures?], the lower the rev limit due to float, etc. etc. Guzzis & H-D pushrod v-twins use some seriously loooong pushrods; this makes them "whippy" & affects valve timing by incorporating imprecision at higher rpms [vs. a shorter pushrod of equal mass...] (FWIW, you wanna know what they call the ultimately short, stiff, light & precise pushrod? They're called "valve shims..." ) Carbon-fiber ("CF" for short) is very light, & very stiff for it's mass: that's why you see it in use for all the nifty weight-saving racy bits. (Blame this stuff on the aerospace industry; they invented it, seeing as how they're always looking for lighter & stronger (aka, "stiffer") materials with which to build the next bazillion dollar apiece advanced tactical can o' whoopass...) You could do the whole 'rod in titanium [element code "Ti" on the Periodic Table of Elements], and in fact, you can buy some Harley push-rods today in the stuff if you want. [NB: I keep wondering "how different are H-D rods from Guzzi vis-a-vis length & diameter? Would it be possible to buy some cheap Harley bits & throw'em in a Guzzi mill w/ minor adjustments? Yep, I'm a cheap b@st@rd! ] - but why? It's not going to save that much mass vs. the alloy pushrods Guzzi has in there now [altho' for the same wt they could be made slightly stiffer, always a VGT in a pushrod...] Now, CF can't be used as a wearing surface against a rocker or cam, [& neither should Ti, really], & moreover, the hot engine oil would have deleterious f/x on the epoxy matrix used to bind the CF strands into something useable. So, if you made a nifty CF tube sized just right to fit inside of a nice thin-walled tube of stiff 6Al-2V Ti alloy of correct dimensions, & then capped the whole thing off w/ some nifty hardened S7 steel ends for bearing on the cam & valve rockers [actually, I'd rather see roller ends for the cam & rocker, but that's another thread] and you'd have about as light & stiff a pushrod as you could realistically expect for a Guzzi short of getting really nuts & using Beryllium-Boron-Unobtanium-ridiculou$lyabsurdex$pen$ive esoterica... Anyway, why does any of this matter at the rpms Guzzis spin at? Because for any given valve-train mass, you're going to have to run a valve-spring capable of keeping the valves from floating at the rpm at which you wish to run them. You can have 100# pushrods made of depleted uranium if you like, but you're going to need springs of about 1000#?/in to control them, which means all the power your motor puts out is going to be tied up in just keeping it running, & you'll have huge frictional losses from having to run the oil pressure at sufficiently high numbers/heavier wt. oil to keep the bearing surfaces in that valve-train from destroying themselves. Thus, lighter is better. Ride on!

I've been told Minnesota only has two seasons: Road removal & snow repair!