Lex

Docc answer is, at least as far as I know, correct but I would add that I would love to see a dyno run with a stock cross-over and one with the "stuff" removed. You would need to reprogram the ECU or add a well set-up PCIII for the results to mean much. It would be very interesting to see how opening up the "boom box" to allow each cylinder easy access to both mufflers would change the power output. More on top? More down low? No change? Who knows? If it works well keeping the stock look, saving the cost of an after market X-over would be an interesting option. Who knows, old stock X-overs might be valuable some day. Cheers, Lex

While we are wondering about the smoking habits of the dyno operator I'll add that the torque and HP runs in green do not cross are 5250 RPM. Given that the formula for HP is Torque X RPM / 5250 these curves can not cross at nearly 6K RPM as shown. Very curious, Lex

In answer to the original question: Not at all. I just joined the forum in December and found the people here to be very friendly. As has been pointed out, there are always people on any forum who contribute more than most, that is just the nature of the beast. What I've enjoyed about this forum is that people are able to disagree without childish name calling and the poor arguments (an epidemic in America) I find on so many internet groups. BTW, anybody who buys a green Guzzi is colorblind, stupid and probably has sex with farm animals. I know this true because I read it on some internet site. Cheers, Lex

Rudi, I think you are confusing the symptoms (the bike runs poorly when it is set-up for tight emissions standards) with the problem (the FI doesn't work very well). As I said in my first post, you can (as BMW has) cover up the problem by running the bike rich. Engines are very happy to run a bit rich, if the FI sends a little too much fuel into the cylinder, no problem. If you are running close to the lean edge to meet emissions standards you can't get away with that. This problem is endemic to the R259 engine, look at all the other bike that use cats and O2 sensors and meet the same standards while running well. I realize this is not relevant to a Guzzi forum but I feel BMW has gotten off much too lightly for some horrible engineering in the last decade or so. I about lost it when I head the explanation for the dual plug head coming out now. It seems BMW insiders said that BMW didn't care about sending bikes that run poorly to the US (My '94 RS ran very poorly, I was told it was my problem) but when the home market was effected by the new, tighter emissions standards the problem was fixed. Nice to know BMW really cares about the people that spend $10 to $17,000 on the US versions. Lex, owner of more than a dozen BMWs who will not be buying any more in the future.

Mike, FWIW, I think the surging problems with the oil heads have much more to do with the god-awful FI design and poor cylinder head design than the catalyst and O2 sensor. You can cover up the problem with more fuel or with two spark plugs (more likely to start a good "fire" in the combustion chamber) but until BMW produces an FI design that allows the throttle bodies to stay in sync for more than ten seconds or, at the very least, provides a TPS for the right throttle body they are just putting Band-Aids on the problem. Don't blame the emission control equipment for BMW's crapy work. My K1200 has both O2 sensors and a catalyst, meets the same pollution standards as the R259's and it "carburets" just about perfectly. Several other bikes have cats and O2 sensors and they also work much better than the oil heads. This may have something to do with the fact that every FI design I have ever seen, except the current BMW twins, links the throttle bodies rigidly to each other and uses rods rather than Bowden cables to link the individual throttle bodies. To BMW for a bad design and ten years without a real fix. Lex (ex-R259 owner) And now back to Moto Guzzi content...

John, I think I was told (not 100% sure) the stock spring is 0.7 Kg/ Cm. The most common replacement is a 0.9 Kg like Mike used. I'm not sure what you would use, LE selected a 1.05 Kg spring for me at 260 Lb, that puts you right in the middle of Mike and I. Another good source for springs in Race Tech. http://www.race-tech.com/ Carl, I think you are missing the point, not improving your suspension at all because you don't want to go all the way to a full re-spring/ re-valve is like not sending your kid to kindergarten because the little one will not go on to get a PhD. The biggest gains in anything come at the start. The next time you change your fork oil have a set of 0.9 Kg springs around and swap them. You'll get the biggest part of the improvement Mike and I got for 25% of what we spent on our forks. I'll put it another way, if the stock spring is a 0.7 and the replacement is a 0.9 that is about 29% stiffer. How much difference do you think 29% more horsepower would make? That is how far off the stock spring is from the ideal. Add the excessive preload and the poor quality of the spring (they seem to sack pretty quickly) and I'll bet your see a very large improvement with just the springs. A very good "bang for the buck" ratio. Play around with fork oil viscosity and level and you will very possibly find more improvement. Lex

Rich, (soapbox mode on) You don't have to ride fast to enjoy good suspension. On my best day (long ago) I was a middle of the pack state level road racer. I'm not even that fast these days. "Back in the day", i.e. when I was racing, I used to get my a** kicked by guys on bikes that didn't handle nearly as well as mine. I can recall nearly crashing watching a very fast guy pass me on the inside of a long corner (the Carousel at Sear Point) riding so hard I could SEE his frame flex on the bumps and potholes that make up the surface of that track. Outside of my dreams I've never been able to ride nearly that well. One of the enduring myths is that only fast guys need good suspension. The fact is, fast guys can ride around problems that stump people like me. In a semi-related reference, anybody remember the adventures of the "Dirt Donks" in Cycle magazine back in the late seventies/ early eighties? The premise was an argument between the poor dirt riders (AKA the Dirt Donk(ey)s) and the good dirtbike riders over who benefited the most from good dirtbikes. The Donks said they didn't need good dirt bikes because they were slow anyway. The good dirtbikes riders kept trying to get the Donks to try a better bike. Eventually, the Donks tried better bikes and discovered they went faster, had more fun and crashed less. On the other side, the better dirt riders could still out ride the Donks because they could ride around the problems caused by poor handling and lack of power in the low end dirt bikes. Back to Guzzi related content, I enjoy my bike's much improved ride at least as much as the ability to keep the tires on the ground in more demanding conditions. I guess what I am trying to say is that everyone benefits for good suspension. No one will enjoy riding his bike more if the ride is rough on bumpy roads or the tires come off the road when you try to brake, corner or accelerate over bumps. If you were closer I'd offer to let you ride my bike but to tell the truth any Japanese bike above the "econo" class will show you how your suspension should work. Once you experience good suspension you'll want it on anything you ride, even a full on luxury touring bike. The enjoyment get riding my "fat bike" (a K1200LT) went up enormously when I had LE re-spring and re-valve the rear shock. When I have the cash I'll upgrade the front (have to replace, that shock can't be re-valved, cheap BMW SOBs) and I'm looking forward to that very much. Mike and I took a fairly expensive route but I'd be willing to bet everyone reading this board to find they would love the improvement from just putting in appropriate springs in the forks. Your bike will ride better AND be more stable in aggressive riding. Other than $120-ish an all around win. (soapbox mode off) Cheers, Lex

Al, I haven't ridden a Goose with a well set up Ohlins but I can tell you the front of my bike (after the revision) is very good. I'd call it plush but controlled. A semi-related note. Did anybody else watch Speedvision's coverage of the Formula Extreme race at Fontana? They showed a bit of the 250 GP race to open the program. Race winner Rich Oliver took the time to thank Jim Lindemann for making his "catalog" (i.e. stock Yamaha) fork work as well as anything on the track. BTW, LE does not sponsor Oliver, they just work on his bike. I'd say getting the very poorly set-up fork and the shock greatly improved for the same or less than the price of an Ohlins or Penske shock is a pretty good deal. Lex

Mike, Glad to hear you found the problem. I don't know about anybody else but we used to call that "packing down". When the rebound is too stiff the shock compresses over the first bump and can't extend before being compressed by the next one which starts a nasty cycle that only ends when the bumps stop or the shock bottoms. As you have seen, it can be really hard to find because it feels like a stiff spring or too much compression damping. For what ever this amateurs opinion is worth, that is one reason I start out with the adjusters soft and work my way up to the stiffer settings as needed. In my experience, starting from the other direction is a strong indicator of a squid. Enjoy Mines road Lex

dlaing, Carl, I can't get to the original statement but those are pretty close to Todd's words. The request was the same as this thread, basically "Can I buy a cheap Quota PC III from K&N and put it in my 15M Guzzi". I have no way of knowing Todd's state of mind or what his intention was, I can only report on the words he posted. Given that he signed the post "Certified Power Commander Tech" or words to that effect make it hard from me to believe anything but that he was trying to get people to pay full price for one of his PCIIIs but, as I said, I'm not a mind reader. It is purely a personal opinion but I've read a few posts from Todd where it seems his answer was more than a bit intentionally misleading. Some of the posts that Rich M has made on this forum have included a good deal of double talk that Rich has attributed to Todd. I'm sure Todd is a nice guy and a pillar of the MG community but you have to remember he makes his living selling this stuff. Todd would have to be pretty close to sainthood to never let his economic interest color his thinking. In the past I've made my living as a sales engineer, I would never lie to a customer but you can bet your last dollar I always phrased things in a way that flattered what I was selling, to do otherwise would be stupid. That doesn't mean I didn't give my customers a great deal of useful information and it doesn't mean I don't read and learn a lot from what Todd says. What that means is that I remember he has an economic interest and have my BS filter set accordingly. In the words of the great New Jersey philosopher Bruce Springsteen; "Blind faith in anything can get you killed". Lex

Just to confirm, all 15M Moto Guzzi CPUs (I think that is post 2000) are the same. I bought the Quota unit from K&N for my 2001 V11, dropped in the correct map from the Power Commander site and it worked fine. You can confirm this with the folks at Dyno Jet at www.powercommander.com or (800) 992-4993. Todd has been blowing smoke trying to confuse people on this issue with vague comments like "some PCIII will not work in some applications". This may well be true for Suzukis or some other brand but all late model Guzzi units interchange. Cheers, Lex

Jaap, Getting the Bosch relays in an auto parts store may be a good plan for Europe but here in the US I have to second Docc's suggestion of ordering through Don's biker trash. First, almost no one carries or can even get the Bosch parts in the US. Second, I got four relays for a little less than I was quoted for one from the one place I found that could get them. Also, I had the relays in my hand four days after contacting Don, faster than I would have gotten them from the other source. JMHO, Lex

The original mounts on my 10 year old R100R are still perfect so they may last until the &**&^&^ at MGNA get you the parts. Still waiting for the parts that fell off my Goose on the way home from the dealer, close to four months now. Jaap, did you make this just for me? Lex

Carl, Well, actually, the BMW mounts are round as well. I just had a brilliant thought and actually checked instead of relying on my (feeble) memory. I guess I'm up for another Homer Simpson award. Anyway, I hope this is useful. Mike, if you check them out could you let us know if they are the same/ close enough to be used? I don't recall seeing one fail on a BMW so if they are usable this might be a good tip of Guzzi owners. I'll file the superglue trip under get home/ how to keep the bike working until the UPS lady delivers new parts tools. Living in the boonies means nothing is available same day even if the shop has it in stock. At least the good roads are close. Cheers, Lex

Mike, I'm too lazy to pull the tank and I can't see them from the outside but it these mounts are hexagonal rubber pieces maby12-13 mm thick with a short (guess 10 to 15 mm) six mm stud coming out each side BMW uses lots of them on the airheads. I would try to take the part to a BMW shop. If you get a dweeb (lots of good BMW parts guys but a few jerks do slip in) tell him/ her you want the rubber mount that attaches the headlight assembly to the forks on an R100R. If they are still around (loosing my BMW connections) Robert at SJ BMW or Kevin at Cal BMW are both very good. I hope this helps, Lex

Mike, Yeah, the lack of front end dive was what I was referring to with my quote from Jim about springs. The bike is so much more "planted" under braking now. I'm finally starting to ride the bike in my style (think of slow motion video of KRSR ) instead of being forced to ride around the bikes faults. I haven't picked up the head shake but that maybe that I haven't hit the right combination of bumps/ lean angle/ speed. I'd talk to Jim about it, his knowledge is just amazing. When I got there Friday he was "fixing" a suspension problem over the phone. "Ok, you open the throttle at the exit of turn three, describe what the bike does. (pause) No, don't stiffen the front pre-load, back off the rear, you see, what is happening is..." Pretty amazing to an amateur like me. Guzzi claims 5" of travel in the rear, I haven't measured it. I think (not sure, this is outside my knowledge) dlaing is right, the bumper isn't the end of travel, it is more of a "helper spring" to stiffen the last part of the shocks travel. FWIW, I wouldn't mess with the bump stop before I spoke to LE, part of what you paid for is their knowledge. I've found them very willing to offer advice. I'm hoping to make Ojai for the day Saturday. I'm about to go back to work (I've been a bum for the last 19 months, wonderful time) and I'll be there if I'm not at work. I'd love to meet you and a bunch of the other Guzzi folk I've only "met" over the 'net. dlaing, As far as the sag I'm a bit embarrassed to tell you I don't even know the position of the adjusters. I was so happy and having so much fun on Sunday I never touched a thing. I brought my little note book and a pen to check things and keep my notes up but after we got a little crazy on SR 41 and I never had to think about the suspension I just rode the stupid thing. I had a little too much sag in the forks before I took them back to LE, I measured 1.125" of sag for the bike and another 3/8" (i.e. 1.5") with me on the bike. Jim agreed this was to much and planed to add a little (1/8") more pre-load while the bike was apart. Cheers, Lex

Two weeks ago I concluded that, in spite of the large improvement over stock, the damping on the V11’s forks was not what I wanted. I went back to LE last week and had them change (soften) the high-speed (non-adjustable) damping. I took the bike for a short (150 miles) ride yesterday and a very happy with the final results. It is hard to describe properly set-up sport bike suspension because you mostly say what it isn’t, it isn’t jarring but it also isn’t numb. Several years ago a friend said, “You feel the bumps but you don’t hate them”, that is as close to a one sentence description of a well set up bike as I have heard. You need to feel the bumps to know what is happening at the contact patch but the suspension should move to allow the tire to stay in contact with the road and it should also soften the impact delivered to the rider. The only remaining problem is a bit of harshness from the rear end under some conditions. Bikes with a heavy final drive, short swing arm and no progressive shock linkage may be condemned to that problem. I would like to ride a bike with a well set-up Ohlins/ Fox/ Penske to see how much a really top quality shock would reduce the problem. The guy I was riding with was on a Ducatis ST2. We swapped bikes for a while, after all the work on my bike the suspension felt remarkably like the Duck. The Ducati was a little softer, as befits a bike with touring in its name, but the overall feel was very similar. It is a sad commentary on the as delivered forks and shocks that I had to spend $750 and change every part of the suspension (springs, high and low speed compression and rebound damping) to get the Guzzi to work as well as a bone stock Ducati. As an aside, I had a nice chat with Jim Lindemann after the work was done. I learned my description of the forks damping was not accurate. I have been saying the damping is to stiff; according to Jim it is more complex than that. There is very little damping (rebound or compression) for the first part of the forks travel. The last part of the travel (not the “bump stop”, the last 1/3 or so) damping becomes very stiff. That, combined with ridiculously soft springs, is what delivers the jarring we all feel and I was misinterpreting as stiff damping. Jim also said something interesting about springs. I can’t reproduce it word for word but this is fairly close: “Bikes with soft springs and more pre-load sort of move around a lot, they never seem to find a “set”, bikes with the correct springs sort of ride on top of the springs and stay there.” I had not thought it out this clearly but that pretty much describes the V11, especially the fork, before the work and after. I can’t tell anyone else what is or is not worth his or her hard earned bucks but for me the work was well worth my money. Everyone has his or her own priorities and budget, for my taste making the bike work much better for the price of a set of high-end mufflers or an after market shock was a great deal. YMMV, Lex

The best examination I have found on adjusting the FI is from MPH Cycles. Read it carefully, I found it a little less than clear about when they changed from adjusting the V11 to other Guzzis but once you sort that out it is very useful. http://www.mphcycles.com/frame11-technical.htm Lex

Mike, I feel your pain. The only encouraging this I can say is that you will get a chance to torque/ loctite lots of bolts the factory probably didn't set correctly and with the rain we are getting you wouldn't want to be riding anyway. I am really happy there is a work around for the seal, I have been nervous ever since this issue came up. In the fun filled world of suspension "only" $60 is getting off cheap. I'm taking my forks back to LE next week, I think they got a little carried away on high speed compression. I can set the adjuster low enough to mask it but then the bike is mushy on the low speed stuff. This is a pain but they were very cool when I called. "Sorry, you bring, we fix same day, no charge". = Mike on mines road next Saturday? Cheers, Lex

dlaing, Defiantly not to mathematical. Just to make sure I am clear, I am not an expert. I've been lucky enough to know a few, read a lot and have done some messing around. That said... I measured roughly 16" from the swing arm pivot to the axle and 9" from the swing arm pivot to the rear shock bolt. That should give a ratio of 16/9. Being lazy I rounded to 2 to 1. The only thing I would question about the rest of what you said is the weight distribution, Guzzis are notoriously "tail heavy". Making a complete SWAG I'd guess the 500 LB would be distributed something like 60%R (300 LB) and 40%F (200 LB). Anybody actually weight one? Other than that it makes sense to me. That doesn't mean its right, I'm not that trustworthy. (Sorry, I love Japp's smilies) As to why preload doesn't work to replace spring rate, that is one I had to have explained to me. The important thing to remember is that pre-load doesn't change rate. Lets say you have two springs that both have a rate of 100 LB/ In. and five inches of travel. Spring A is pre-loaded two inches, spring B 1 inch. If you add 100 pounds neither spring moves, add a second 100 pound and spring B compresses one inch. Add a third 100 pound block and both springs compress one inch. See the difference? All that changed what that spring A didn't move at all until it had twice as much weight as spring B. Do that to your forks and you get can get the proper ride height (that is good) but the spring will still be to soft when you hit a bump, nail the brakes or hit a bump while nailing the brakes (bottom out, big shock through the bars, tire off the road when you need it most, etc.). Moto Guzzi "solved" this by specifying way too much high speed (non-adjustable) compression damping. This a brilliant solution, not only is your fork still going to bottom (remember, the damper just slows the movement, it can't change it) but the bike rides like an empty cement truck to boot. Back to the important (non-theoretical) question if your local dealer comes up blank I'd try Race Tech (http://www.racetech.com/) for springs. They don't show any application for the V11 but they handle Eibach and show applications for the Ducati SS, some of which came with eye-talian forks. If it helps, my stock springs are 35mm by 295mm. LE put a 1.05 Kg/Cm spring in but remember I'm a lard ass, 260 LB. Someone (maybe Todd?) suggested 0.90 Kg/Cm for normal sized people. Hopefully someone familiar with these bikes or Race Tech can tell you what you need for your size, that is past my knoladge. Anything here helpful? Lex

dlaing, While the method you suggest is probably useful that is not sag as any person who does suspension would understand it. The geometry of the swing arm means the wheel moves much more than the shock. A quick look at my bike shows the ratio would be roughly 2 to 1, i.e. the shock moves 1/2 the distance the axle moves. The standard way to measure sag is to put the bike on a shop stand (wheel off ground, suspension topped) and measure from a fix point (I use the bottom of "V" in the decal on the rear cowling) to the axel. Take the bike off the stand, sit on it, jump up and down a bit to reduce the effects of stiction, sit as close to the normal riding position as possible and have someone take the same measurement. The difference should be between 20 and 25% of the total travel. Another rule of thumb, if you need more than 10mm of pre-load to get the sag set correctly you need to go to a heavier spring. All, I've said this before but I'm sorry, nobody over 125 pounds is going to get the suspension to work without stiffer fork springs. I know changing them is a pain and they cost $100 but they are soft, already have to much pre-load and appear to be really crappy martial to boot. Docc is about as light as full grown adult males of European decent get (160 pound ready to ride) and he has nearly twice the sag (he report 45mm, he should have about 25mm) he should have with a spring that is already has too much pre-load. I apologize if I sound like an a** but I have been around this problem more time than I care to think about. Pre-Telelever BMW fork springs have exactly the same problem, to soft, to much pre-load and crappy material. I started riding BMWs twenty years ago and even worked in a shop for a while. I can't tell you how much time and effort people put into fixing them. We tried helper springs, we tried replacing the spacers with Chevy valve springs, we tried air pressure, blah, blah, blah. The only thing that works is to fix the root problem. I appreciate that people like to play with their bikes but if you work with the wrong springs you are just going to frustrate yourself. My way of thinking about this (and maybe nobody else's) is to think about the jobs the parts do, the springs support the bike, the dampers simply damp the motion of the springs. You can drain all the oil from your dampers and ride your bike, it won't work very well but you can ride it, try going for a ride without springs. Lex

Cliff, (He said feeling like he better get this right as he is awed by anybody who can make his own ECU ) It runs very well now, the problems that got me started were poor response when opening the throttle (nothing for a few degrees of throttle rotation followed by more than I needed when it does start to make power) from closed throttle and a miss when accelerating between 2500 and 3000 RPM. At this point (I've removed most of the leanness in the base map from 5 to 20% throttle at 2500 and 3000) the throttle response is very good. Even down at 3000 RPM (as low as I normally let the tach go the high gears) the bike accelerates powerfully and smoothly. I am trying to trace down an occasional hesitation at 2500 RPM. Yes, I know 2500 RPM is below normal operating range but I sometimes find myself in situations (read traffic) where being able to stay in second gear is much better than constantly going back and forth between first and second. Is that what you were looking for? Lex

There has been plenty of talk about the PCIII on this site and other places but I would like to bring up something I hadn't heard much about. My bike (completely stock) worked better with the PCIII than without but it was still not perfect. I figured the best solution would be to get some miles on the bike, make the changes I was going to make (mufflers, X pipe, whatever) and then have a custom map made at a shop with the Tuning Link software. I may have a custom map made or not but I have found a simple way to get the bike very close to perfect without a dyno and Tuning Link. I ordered the null modem adapter so I can connect my Palm to the PCIII. This has proven to be a very cool tool. Everything (Palm, sync cradle, null modem) fits in my tank bag. I build a set of maps, load them in the Palm (you can have as many as the memory on your Palm allows) and go for a ride. Try map A, try map B, try map C, etc. Counting taking off the seat changing maps takes about 2 minutes. Make notes, if you like the throttle response at 10% with map A but map B is better over 20% you can build a map that combines the small throttle setting of map A with the large throttle opening settings of map B. If you build a map that is a real dog you can just go back to the last one that worked or even the base map Dynojet provides. This is like how we did it in the old days but without the time lost (and burned hands) from pulling a carb off a hot engine, changing parts and making you hands smell like gas for several days. Lets not talk about how much fun it was when you spilled gas on the hot engine or pipes. Liquid gas is actually pretty safe but gas fumes can ruin your whole day. Also, I don't miss needing to buy twenty jets to find the two you need or looking for weeks to find the one place that has an unusual size jet. If you have a Palm (or other Palm OS based product) the "Dynojet Palm adapter" (part # 42907090) is fairly cheap, $8 plus $5 shipping. What makes this null modem different from million of others is that they cut the pins off of location 4 and 6 on both ends. You could probably do it yourself but for $13 and taking a chance on voiding your warrantee I'm not sure it is a good trade off, YMMV. http://www.powercommander.com/palmadaptor.shtml Cheers, Lex

Jaap, Please put up a link. I did this for two reasons. The first was selfish, I wrote manuals and training documents in a previous life (for Cisco) and found the best way to learn something was to try to explain it. The second was that Guzzi people have been great in my four moths of Guzzi ownership and I thought this might be a good way to do something positive for the Guzzi folks who have been so nice to me. I'll try to do a few more of this type of page as I learn how to do some of the basic maintenance on my Goose. Finally, PLEASE let me know if you find any errors or thing I could improve any of my pages. I used to have a non-geek (a guy who went to college and came out with a degree in English of all things* ) and a very close relationship with the development engineers to keep me accurate, I only have you folks now. Cheers, Lex * American Geek humor: Q: What are the words most often spoken by a liberal arts major after graduation? A: Would you like fries with that?

Bill, Guzzis are about customizing, I've started to think of my bike as a kit that was just assembled to make it easier to ship. Some people raise the bars, some lower them. Paul M. is building a Ducati that looks like a Moto Guzzi. As for Americans raising the bars, at least one reason Americans tend to look into higher bars is that we go to jail for speeds you might think are normal. Another is that we ride a long ways, it is about the same distance from San Diego to Oregon as from London to Guzzi HQ. You call it a continent, we call it a state. And yes, a diet rich in pizza and 'burgers doesn't help. Cheers, Lex (who is happy with the stock bars)