Greg Field

Thanks for the suggestions. The others're very nice. I want to maximize the red area, though, so that's why I'm doing it differently. I am a sucker for red . . .

I've been slaving like, well, a slave to get a Lemans fairing fitted to my Ballabio, so I can get it painted to complement the rest of the Coppa Italia paint scheme that it wears. The fairing parts were assembled from bits pulled from three different crashed LeManses (all of three different years, with subtle differences on each) and are being grafted onto a bike that was also crashed, which meant I had to repair the fairing mounts on the Ballabio frame. I did that last Sunday. The result is, it's a hell of a lot of work to get everything to line up. I've had to tweak and bend brackets slightly enlarge holes, etc. to get it all to work together. I also made cutouts in the fairing to allow me to keep the aftermarket crashbars I have on the bike. But, I think it was worth it all. Even without a repaint, the fairing half from an '02 red and gray LeMans matches perfectly and looks great. I've sort of worked out how to integrate the full fairing with the Coppa paint scheme, but if anybody can offer suggestions about how I might make it better, I'd like to hear them. Here's what it looks like. The blue tape is to help me decide where the red will transition to silver (and vice-versa) and where the green stripes will be. The two outer stripes on the side of the fairing define the boundaries of the silver panel. Fore and aft of the silver panel, the fairing will be red. That silver panel'll also have a green stripe, to continue the line of the green stripe off of the tank. I will not have a green stripe at the front end of the silver panel, or that's the plan for now anyway. The bulk of the rest of the fairing will be red, but with a silver panel in the very center of the fairing above and below the headlight. The blue tape here sort of defines the boundaries of the silver area. Everything to the center of the tape will be silver but will also have a green stripe along each edge and a red oval in the center, above the headlight, matching the ones on the tank. I'll also paint the tailpiece red along the sides back to the point at which the lines sweeping down off of the rear seatcover define a change from red to silver and the green stripe. The back end will be silver with a red oval guzzi logo matching that on the gas tank. Any ideas on how to better the design?

Of course. Yes. I didn't think of that.

No, even though I was a dealer for their products, they blew me off. Needless to say, I have bought nothing from them since then. I threw away he cracked crossover. Sorry.

Dyno results on the bike about which this thread was started are here: http://www.v11lemans.com/forums/index.php?...=dyno&st=45 Both maps are with the Mistral crossover, which is the one I liked best and have stuck with. If you compare the torque charts of mine vs. the one in the aussie thread, mine has almost 20 percent more torque at 3000 rpm (59 lb-ft. vs 50 lb.-ft.). Unfortunately, there isn't a chart in that thread of torque for the Stucchi-equipped bike. You can clearly feel the difference. Probably, the Mistral costs me 3-5 hp on the top end compared to the same bike fitted with a Stucchi crossover. Probably, the Mistral makes at least as much top end as the stock scrossover, though, and the Mistral makes 20 percent more at 3,000 rpm and keeps a substantial torque lead to 6,000 rpm. This is where I ride, so that's why I liked the Mistral best. I commute on my V11 mostly, and the smooth low-end with no torque hole is most appreciated under that use. Also, the Mistral allows fitting of a centerstand, which once used a few times I found I could not live without, whereas the Stucchi doesn't allow use of the centerstand. Is the Mistral for everyone? No, and I always ask how a person will be riding before I make a recommendation on which they should buy. If you mostly ride in the hills or on the track and do not want a centerstand, the clear winner is the Stucchi crossover, and I probably sell two Stucchis for every Mistral I sell.

Slavomir: I have one red cover in stock at Moto International. Maybe another dealer has one, too?

Stout, properly sized aluminum head protectors, as opposed to those too-small and too-weak head protectors fitted by the factory to modern Guzzis, will do everything those RP spools will do and not look so obtrusive. We make a set at Moto International, for example, that have saved damage to hundred ob ikes in crashes. A guy brought one in last week, frome abike he crashed at 55 mph. It skun up the guard pretty well, but his plug cap didn't even tough down, let alone break.

I see. It would seem that the procedure has now ossified to become dogma. So be it. Still, one wonders if any of the creators of this procedure have tuned a bike that has the Guzzi race ECU and pipes? If not, how can the procedure be proven or even tested for these machines? If so, maybe it works for some machines under the particular use that those owners put their machines to but wouldn't for others? Here's a little story. We at our shop have had two '04s that owners themselves fitted with the Ti pipes and ECU. These folks followed their normal tuning procedures and never could get the bikes to run right. These stumbled and hesitated under certain conditions of part throttle and small throttle changes and weren't as smooth-running as before and one pinged badly. Both owners later sold their V11s on consignment or traded them in because they could never get them to run right. One of these folks was an auto mechanic. In both cases, with 10 minutes of tuning, our service manager had them completely sweet-running. One he told me was the best-running V11 he had ever ridden, and he has ridden hundreds of V11s. Also, he has personally owned three V11s that had the Ti pipes and one with other pipes. He insisted I take it for a ride, and it ran perfectly. I deliberately tried to make it misbehave but it didn't. It ran as good as mine with a PCIII and custom map, even though it had neither, just a proper tuning for Ti pipes. You might at least consider that the Guzzi race ECU is different enough that it could benefit from altered tuning compared to that of the normal ECU.

Timely. I'm pulling one of those apart this weekend, just to learn how to do it. Yours won't be the first I repair . . .

I feel cheated. I didn't get the email.

Umm . . . those were OEM recommendations, from the Guzzi instructions that come with the Ti exhaust. They are valid only if you use one of the two (late or early) race ECUs provided with the exhaust kit. If using one of these two ECUs, these recommendations ARE the only ones out there. I believe it unwise to assume they are not valid.

I currently have Motorex 10-60 in my V11 and 5w-40 Castrol R in the Eldo. Both apparently work great.

Sounds fun. Wish I could be there . . .

The Mike Rich cams are megacycle x9 and x10 cams. We set up one V11 with an x9 cam and mid-valve heads from a Cali. The low-rpm and mid-rpm power were awesome. I never got a real chance to try out the top-end power.

H&Bs work great. My V11's a commuter/grocery getter, so I leave them on full-time. I've hauled complete Guzzi engine blocks on the rear rack. It's a very nice system. I have 30L bags because the 40s just look too wide. Somedays, I wish I had the 40s, but not that often.

As already said, check to see if you swapped the inlet pipes. Then, experiement with rotating the inlet pipes for fine positioning of the mufflers. Because of the assymetrical swingarm, the mufflers will not be perfectly symmetrical to each other. Different crossovers give different power characteristics. I use a Mistral becuase it really smooths out the power delivery below 4,000 rpm ( I commute in city traffic a lot more than I am WFO on twisty roads) and allows me to have a centerstand, which I will not do without.

Two terms are useful when talking squish. 1) Squish area is the flat area around the perimeter of the combustion chamber that faces the flat area below it around the perimeter of the piston. 2) Squish clearance is the vertical clearance between the flat squish areas on the piston and combustion chamber. In general, more squish area is better than less area, and less squish clearance is better than more squish clearance, provided that there's enough clearance that the piston doesn't smack the head. On a hemi-head like on a V11, increasing squish area requires milling the heads. Decreasing the squish clearance, which is often 2-3mm on a production Guzzi is more easily accomplished. The "right" way is to mill the base-gasket surface. It is "right" because then the cylinder swept area remains unaltered. The easier way is to experiment with the various-thickness base gaskets (at elast three different thicknesses are available, from the thin V700 base gaskets to the stock V11 base gaskets) available to get tighter squish clearance. On my Eldo, to get the clearance down to what I wanted required running it without base gaskets at all. Note, though, that using thinner base gaskets means at TDC the rings will now contact higher up on the cylinder. If there is appreciable wear to the cylinder, this could make a difference. On my Eldo, there was no measurable wear, so I felt OK doing this.

Octane booster's the cheap way. Try DurAlt to clean out the deposits that may contribute to the problem. I plan on messing with the quish on my V11 to try to get rid of pinging because this worked fabulously on my Eldo. I set the squish pretty tight, and whereas previously it would ping sometimes on premium, all the time on mid-grade and viciously on regular gas, I cannot now (or at least haven't been able to yet) force it to ping, even on regular.

Guzzi specifically warns not to use grease with moly for this use. Why they would, I could not say. Everytime I have greased the u-joints on my own V11, it has been with moly grease. They now have 18.5k miles on them.

Prob'ly so. I was thinking that maybe the nut did some grinding on its way off. It'll be interesting to see what it is.

'Nother idea: The cam nut, she come off. I've seen that once.

Back to Foxy. Did it make any abnormal valve clatter before dying? Reason I ask is I've seen 4 cams go on '04 Sports, leaving bunches of swarf in the sump.

Be sure to use a hose clamp to keep the tinfoil hat in place. Klingons are sticklers for redundancy.

Cam is the same for the SPorts and V11 Sports. You could have your cam reground to a B-10 profile. We have a grinder set up with a master made from a brand-new B-10. Or you could use a Megacycle x9. We have used an x9 and mid-valve heads on a V11 and it made it a midrange monster.