Skeeve

BULWORTH! Mmmm, Halle Berry...

The stock crossover doesn't have an extra muffler: it has the catalytic grid for scrubbing the exhaust! No point to taking it out: it won't flow significantly better and you'll be increasing your pollution by an order of magnitude or so... If you're going to increase your pollutants, you might as well get some extra perf. out of it & get the Stucchi...

Oval parts [tubing, endcaps] harder to source, more costly. Can ends ups giving better ground clearance for a given volume. Round: cheaper, easier construction. That's about it.

[knack] Soft-faced (plastic, rubber, wood) mallet, one good thwack. [/knack]

Outside temp: not much! Obviously if you're racing or the temps are seriously cold, but for most street riding in the "comfortable" range of 50-100deg F, there's not going to be any changes to your tire pressures. That's why you check them cold, because once they're rolling the tire generates heat from friction and the pressure rises slightly. The standard technique for determining your correct pressure is to check it cold, ride it like you normally would & check it hot. If the pressure change is near 10% of the starting pressure [ie, 36psi cold, 40psi hot], you're on the money. Obviously, if you're looking for maximum mileage from the tire, you're going to run'em a bit "hard", since that will decrease rolling resistance, tire heating, etc. There's another approach for finding your pressure: Look at the tire's max load & pressure [this is molded into the sidewall of every tire.] Let's say you have a 420# front & 580# rear rating, at 40 & 46 psi respectively. Take the all up wt. of your bike & you & gear, in this case, we'll use numbers for a Ballabio & a normal sized male w/ a hottie pillion: 550#+210#+115# = 875#. We'll credit the Ball'o w/ a 45/55 wt. distribution, so that's 394# front & 481# rear. 394/420*40psi = 37.5psi 481/580*46psi = 38psi Www-BAM! There's your starting #s! Since I'm a lazy bodger, I don't bother fiddling around with things more than that: if I'm taking a heavier passenger, unless its on a long ride, then they get the standard inflation. Same goes for a lighter one. Ride on!

Yep. Least we can do is deluge the channel's website with requests for a repeat, "since we kept missing the show..." That might even make the wait to repeat shorter!

Yes, I do think cutting off the perf'd. section would provide a substantial increase in flow (& hence, reduced backpressure.) It also would have virtually no impact on noise signature. This coupled with judicious drilling into the internal endcap so as to maximize functionality of the steel wool in chamber 4 is what I intend to do when I "zip up" the pipes I sectioned for these photos. As for cutting out a section of the exhaust pipe in chamber 3, see my previous response to your second post on that topic with the pictures... [ Don't you hate it when you reply to a later post first? Oy! ]

If you're going to that extent to make noise, it's much easier & efficient to just pull off the beauty cover endcap, use a holesaw on the interior endcap and pull out all the stuffing. About the same effect, 100+ dB with much less restriction... Sorry if I misconstrue your post as sarcasm: I tried to propose some changes that would be liveable while providing increased performance. Since the internal structure is now available for anyone to view, any V11 owner can use the info to examine their options & make their own decisions. My decision goes something along these lines: since I don't ride my Bike exclusively on a track or other private property/roads, and I do value my own hearing, the tranquility of my neighbors & fellow roadgoers, and try to keep money in my own pocket by not incurring the wrath of the rolling tax collectors [aka "police"], I'll forego making my pipes unnecessarily noisy, [Elvis] thankyewverramuuuuchmamabaybuh! [/Elvis] OTOH, by targeting the neon laser drill method you suggest on chamber 2, it might prove liveable. Hard to say: ya pays yer money & ya takes yer chances!

On the topic of "how to fix the overly restrictive stock cans for those of us with more time than money & even less sense," I picked up a pair of cans cheap for some Frankensteinian surgery... [shoutout to Ben in Bev. Hills! You da man! Thanx again for the great price on your stockers!] Here's the stockers, outer cover removed: You'll note the E3 symbol & other EPA warning stuff imprinted into the material of the can. Obviously you'll want to make cuts on the opposite side from these... Also please note the very flat plug welds in detail. More on these later. Since I'm a lazy bodger who doesn't want to take the time to saw/grind/nibble his way thru the shell, I followed the basic rule: when in doubt, cheat! [iE: I used a plasma cutter...] Notice the bolt fittings and flat plug welds in the outer surface. The plug welds connect the internal dividers to the outer shell [one was defective; hence the red paint & arrow on the upper can to point out the leak. The fibreglas and outer cover contained it, but that can would have run noticeably "hotter" for the passenger]; the bolt fittings secure the outer cover and the passenger's heel guards on the outer cover. NOTE THAT THE FITTINGS FOR THE HEEL GUARDS ON THE UPPER SURFACE OF THE CAN ANCHOR INTERNALLY, WHILE THE FITTINGS ON THE SIDE THAT MERELY HOLD ON THE COVER DO NOT.(I was just lucky that I decided to skip the upper fittings entirely and so only had to cut circles around the two plug welds on the side.) So here is the internal structure of the stock exhaust can revealed! From left to right, we have 4 chambers: exhaust, resonance, primary resonance, resonance damper. 1st: Inlet from the collector enters & continues all the way to the 3rd chamber to the right. Two small pipes connect this chamber to #2, and a medium sized pipe much smaller than the inlet with a screened opening leading from chamber #1 all the way thru to the exhaust outlet past chamber #4 on the right. No, the end of the perforated pipe is neither open nor perf'd.; it's a blank end! Ergo outflow thru this pipe is reduced to perhaps 1/2 of its "normal" flow capacity... 2nd: Resonance chamber connected by a pair of approx. 1/2"dia pipes on both sides to chambers #1 & #3. Both large lower (inlet) & medium upper (exhaust) pipes have no direct openings to this chamber. 3rd: Primary resonance chamber. Large inlet pipe from x-over finally dumps exhaust gasses in here. Openings are by two small pipes connecting to chamber 2 and perforated divider to chamber 4. Medium upper pipe has no openings to this chamber nor should it, for obvious reasons. All of those advocating taking a drill bit on an 18" extension will wind up drilling a hole directly to this chamber, which will make your exhaust very noisy but not provide enough flow to significantly reduce backpressure! 4th: This chamber is the "damper" for the primary resonance chamber, having direct connection with chamber 3 to the left via the finely perforated divider between them. It is packed almost solid with stainless steel wool. You can see in the pic below that the upper pipe has no connection to the contents of this chamber. (Please ignore the burned & melted sections of the steel wool; this is a byproduct of my using a plasma cutter running at probably 3x the needed current to cut these cans open...) Since this 4th chamber has only limited exposure to chamber 3, and no outlet, it's pretty much just a damper for the spike pressures experienced in the primary resonance chamber to it's left. The two relatively tiny pipes communicating chamber #3 with the secondary resonance chamber (#2 chamber) will cause a lot of backpressure that will force some of the gas into the steel wool, but not much. Basically, the middle of the wad of steel wool is spotlessly clean, since no gasses penetrate that far to carry in carbon... So what can be done with the stock pipe to reduce backpressure WITHOUT making it unsufferably noisy? Not much; due to it's very complex construction without any intent for dismantling [undoubtedly a requirement for various govt. approvals], it cannot be significantly redesigned internally or reconstructed. In another post, someone suggested just removing the outer cap and drilling a bunch of holes in the interior endcap. This will be the quickest & most widely accessible means of reducing the backpressure of the exhaust, since we now know that chamber 4 is: 1) densely filled with steel wool and: 2) doesn't connect with the outlet in any other fashion. With all that steel wool in the way, it will still be fairly subdued, but also by bleeding some of the pressure off to the outside world will damp out the resonances & pressures internal to the can all the more effectively. In this instance, a whole lot of small holes will be more effective than a few large ones. No drill bit over 1/8" (eg., 3mm) need apply. All it takes is a Torx bit of the correct size to access it... For something more comprehensive, we can look a little deeper: To really improve the flow, cutting windows into the respective chambers [easily done by allowing .5" on leeway from any of the "attaching" welds: end caps, top lug fittings, plug welds holding dividers in place], then major surgery to the internal piping can be undertaken and the windows welded back up, ground flat and the original cover reinstalled. The result will be *much* louder, look stock, but should have increased flow. What to cut inside? The middle ground: do the mod to the endcap, then cut a window into chamber 1 and cut off the perforated end to the outlet pipe. Button things back up. The extensive cutting option. Where & what? Window 1: The primary inlet just behind the restriction. Cut it across at an angle, opening facing away from the outlet (perf'd.) pipe, then cut it square across again just before the divider, taking out a segment about 4" long. Wrap the outlet pipe in fibreglas cloth and wiretie in situ. Window 2: Cut the medium (outlet) pipe behind divider #1 and before divider #2. Make these cuts at 45deg to the axis, like this... ---\ /--- and spaced to remove about 1" of pipe on the shorter side of the gap. Window 3: Nada, Nothing, Niente. There is no 3. Don't cut the window; this chamber will be unchanged. Window 4: You will still need to cut window 4 even if you already did the "quick & dirty" endcap drilling previously noted. With all the internal changes being made, the outlet pipe needs access to the buffer area to mellow the exhaust noise. A small window will be sufficient; cut it so that you can pull back the steel wool and drill a couple holes across the outlet pipe in front of the bulge. Again, about 1/8" holes should do the trick. Shove all the steel wool back in & weld the windows all back shut. How much backpressure reduction will there be? My forecast: Not enough to justify the work; only inveterate tinkerers should even contemplate it, for fun. Exhaust noise expected to increase dramatically. In all, it would make more sense to design a low-restriction muffler from scratch that will fit inside the stock covers. The same design using different pipe diameters to maximize flow would still be reasonably quiet but by using larger outlet & connector tubes, flow would be greater. Didja notice the flared ends to the connector tubes? Those are actually very important, dramatically increasing flow. You'd want to do that too with the bigger pipes. Both ends. Ideally, one tube of each pair should be 1/2 the length of its mate, which helps negate resonances. How much would it cost Guzzi to do this? Not much. How much louder would it be? Probably not enough to prevent them from meeting current noise standards. But I can't blame them for the design choices they made: the key was to standardize on one design for all markets, and the Swiss are notoriously tough in their noise standards. C'est la vie... Well this was fun! I hope you all enjoyed it!

Ouch. E$200? Can you talk them into making a mold for that same price? We can individually pay to ship it to the next guy in line & vacbag our own layups... If you're just looking to copy the original equip., what about using that as your form? Hmmm.... I just had a think! ["No you idiot, you didn't have a think, you had a thought! -- Oh, really? Rats, for a minute there, I thought I had a think..." ] Hey Pinkie, are you thinking what I'm thinking?: 1 qt of epoxy resin: $20 1 huge acetate baggie: $? - maybe $5? $10? 1 yard of CF fabric: $30 1 garage sale vacuum whose motor you don't mind burning up: $10 Seriously, I don't see any way it'll cost more than $100 to DIY using the stock part as a form...

Don't sell the HD lump short! One thing it has going for it is volume [of production], which leads to lots of people hot-rodding it & tweaking & squeezing every last ounce of juice from it. How many go-fast companies make a living off of Guzzi? 2? 3? Let's see: FBF repackages other people's product, Stucchi, Raceco, G&B sorta, and Mike Rich. Call it 3.5 companies. Why do you think the Guzzi land speed record folks were so eagerly followed by Guzziphiles? In the Harley realm, there's enough people doing that sort of thing that nobody pays attention to it... Also, Erik Buell's influence shouldn't be underestimated: he did start off building racers, so his design work has some chops. Still either of'em probably have difficulty keeping up with the race-rep J-brand 600s; there's just been too much money thrown at those designs for the past 15 years for anything else to compete...

Hey, I like that! Altho' it seems like it would just be easier to say "Ya can't make more than 100hp at the wheel on our dyno," but the FX races would appear to be a real crowd pleaser, wi/ something for everyone. Cool!

Guzzi has always had a rep for sidestand quirkiness, it seems mostly because they've always had it too far forward by about a foot and a half. It just makes it difficult to implement until you've already dismounted, or vice-versa. At least it's no longer a spring-loaded tipover waiting to happen!

No secret, but a slushbox like the Convert loses more power between the crank & rear wheel than a CVT or regular tranny thru a shaft. Hyrdrodynamic drives are generally considered to lose about 15% of your power right there, leaving out any other drivetrain losses. There's a reason that the first 1000cc engine Guzzi made showed up on the Convert... Seriously, a CVT would have some real advantages for a racing Guzzi, since it would allow maximum use of the broad torque curve, but without as much power loss as a slushbox automatic. What's the "FX" league that Tex thinks the Buell's can outdo the Guzzi in? [/curious]

Pretty nice site, despite the programmers' unfortunate tendency to choices that defeat tabbed browsing [oh well!... ] Why is it that after decades of exporting our finest television entertainment [like "The A-Team", "Knight Rider", etc.] to our poor, deprived cousins across the Pond when they only had 5 TV stations to choose from, that now that they've embraced the Max Headroom future of hundreds of cable options, do they hold out on us when they finally have some content we can use?!? I feel quite betrayed, I tell you... Seems like a neat show, wish we got it over here, esp. when they're showcasing Guzzis...

No offense, but it looks like a [pretty sad] knockoff of the Red Racing Products bikini fairing for a Duc Monster, that has been messed with & is far too "Centauro" for my taste. I first came across the RRP fairing in the SV650.org site; it's a beauty! Givi should stick to luggage & leave the fairings to the Italians... But your Goose dresses up that fairing & conceals it's faults nicely!

Not for Guzzi, no, but IIRC, Dale Walker [of Holeshot Tech. fame] did one for the V-max or XS-XJ1100s back in the day. If not Dale, *somebody* did at least one one-off for the XS back then, since they were drag-racing them and wanted variable final ratios to control hook-up. But that's a much different scene, since the Yellowhammers were still regular gearboxes , wet multiplate clutches, etc. with two 90deg twists to the driveline for the shaft drive [which is why they lose so much more power from crank to ground vs. the Geese, which only have one 90deg turn instead of two...] Dunno where you'd find a regular gearbox to fasten to the back of the Guzzi engine... Heck, why waste your time changing to chain drive? Find some way to hook up the CVT off a Suzi Burgman or something, and always have the perfect ratio to hand!

Grazie, Paulo! ;-) Yes, that's the rack: I didn't realize the Guzzi did up their own, since it seems that all the tasty bits are aftermarket [& this really is a super-looking design!] Thank you for the correction/education; now I know where to start looking! Ride on!

O.K., so it appears I misspoke: even tho' the rack looked superficially like all the other Stucchi racks I've seen, it must in fact be something else. Did MG make their own in-house product? Anyhow, here's an image: Guzzi rack So I'm still trying to figure out how I'll mount this puppy, but fortunately, I'm not in a rush. Still, I'd hate to discover that "I can't get there from here" & have to put it back out on Ebay... :\ Thanks for all the helpful replies so far; ain't this community grand?

Must be nice. Around here, $20 will get you a tire mounted, wheel-off. Balancing & tire disposal are extra fees. Call it $30 all up after tax. For that, I'd rather spend the $45/wheel for the shop to do the whole job. Or, if I had the space, I could buy the HF cheapy tire machine & do it all myself w/o any of the hassles of scheduling drop-off, pickup, etc. But then the Bike shop might close down for lack of business, so where would I be when I need a spagthorpe reverse spanner gear on a Sunday morning? Oh wait: the stOOOpid shops all close on Sundays around here [because they get too much business?] anyway! Neverrr miiiiind... You pays your money & makes your choice, I guess!

Bought a "used" Stucchi rack for a 2000+ Sport off Ebay for my '03 LeMans, and discovered that it apparently needs extra bracketwork to mount it. Yeah, yeah, I know: caveat emptor & all that stuff: from the pix I thought it was a simple mount to subframe supporting the seat, w/o actually going out & looking at the bike. Rec'd. the product, held it up to the bike & ; the subframe doesn't stick out below the bodywork! Obviously, some extra brackets are in order, but of course if I have to spend anything much for them, then there will be no cost savings to buying this thing off ebay. So my question is: does anyone out there have one that they have not as yet mounted, [or even if already mounted,] that they can take pix of the supporting brackets that will be sufficiently detailed that I can cobble up my own? Alternate suggestions gladly accepted... PS - I've gotta say, the rack is a beautiful piece of work: pics I've seen on this site don't really do justice to the quality of workmanship & fabrication. Too bad it's aluminum, tho', since thin wall steel tubing wouldn't weigh much more and of course would allow the use of magnetic tank bags as quick detach cases [Yes, I've already done this w/ my old G'wing: works a treat! ] Hmm, maybe there's a business opportunity here, if I'm going to be doing up my own mounting brackets anyway?

Wish I could find a copy of one of her 1st films: in Era Lui, Si' Si'! she was still just a bit player, and supposedly they didn't issue her a costume for one scene.... so she just went topless! Yowza! Subtitled or not, I wanna see that movie! Love the divine Sophia...

Don't have any numbers for you, but you're definitely on the right track: ask them to set high-speed compression damping to as close to zero as possible ["uh, that's what the spring is for..." ] and you should be happy. Good luck!

[gazes into crystal ball] I'm getting a picture... where you try twisting the throttle and your Guzzi actively shuts it on you every time, ripping the palm off your glove & breaking your wrist in the process! [/crystal ball] Of course, this system would work fine for BMW riders, since their boxer motors have simultaneous induction, but IT... CAN'T... WOOOOOORK! [/young Frankenstein] on a 90deg V engine, since there will always be a difference in the intake vacuum... if the engine is running properly! But thanks for playing! Johny River, what do we have for our departing guests?

Functionally, they should be close to identical, except of course that all those cans = added weight. How is it going to help the bike run better? If you want to tune the cylinders separately, you can add a tap to the individual headers and take your samples upstream from the crossover. Doesn't much matter, tho', since the Guzzi ECU slaves the 2nd cylinder to the first, as I understand it. I think you're making way too much of the issue. Reasons for getting rid of the crossover entirely would be for cosmetic or weight savings issues; I don't think that you can expect to make the bike run better [except for say, one specific throttle setting like WFO] by eliminating the crossover. Look at the evolution of Guzzi exhausts: they started with individual header/muffler pairs, added a balance tube abaft the engine, then an x-over, then kept the x-over and added another balance tube at the *front* of the engine. Now Enzo's pipes and those on the Griso are moving that x-over [in the form of a 2->1 junction] closer to the front of the engine where the balance tube was previously added. This is all in getting greater & more consistent performance out of this old lump. As far as how this applies to the ECU, I assume you're worried about mixing the gases from the respective cylinders & thereby throwing off the lamda sensor(s), but since the response delay [ie, effective sampling rate] is greater than the firing frequency, there is always a mix of exhaust gases being sampled, so you can't get what you want. But if you try, sometimes you'll get what you need, ie: the sample obtained from mounting a lambda sensor in the exhaust plenum [the stock item is more than a x-over, really] is good enough to give you feedback that will keep the engine "close" to optimum. But that's just MNSHO; I'm not an expert, so you can ignore me if you want.