callison

Yeah, you're right. I should've gone back all the way to the first post.

I had to take the transmission out of my V11 Sport and take it back to the dealer (former Guzzi dealer) because the front mainshaft seal was leaking copious amounts of lube. Guess what? The wrong seal had been used when the transmission recall repair was done. Ridiculous to spend a year putting a bike back together and then have to take it back apart because a mistake was made by somebody else. Damnit, I can make my own mistakes, I don't need any help! BTW, you only have to crab the frame about 1.5 inches to get the transmission out. It's pretty amazing how much stuff can be left on the bike when you get clever/lazy. If the damn swingarm had a big enough passage to clear the cardan joint, you wouldn't have to remove the swingarm either.

Everything works but the starter? Pull the tank and bypass the clutch interlock switch or make sure that it operates correctly. This is frequently the problem with that specific set of circumstances. When all kinds of things don't seem to work properly, check the relays. I've known some indivicduals to remove the OEM relays and "check" them with a hammer

I'm going to use my Dremel tool. Every time I carry something sharp, I hurt myself with it Ambi-klutztrous digitally dyslexic I am...

Not entirely, I spent some time talking with Russ, the guy who built the first motor used by the Guzzi LSR team. He used to be a HD race mechanic. His take was the engines were pretty much similar in that they were big pushrod V-twins with all that implies. The major difference according to him was the crank. The Guzzi is 90 degrees and doesn't shake itself to pieces and can rev higher as a result. RPMs do equate to higher power output all other things being equal. That's why Honda built the 4, 5 and 6 cylinder race bikes back in Mike Hailwoods day. More power per equal volume of displacment due to higher revs. At some point though, internal friction will negate power gains or we'd have been seeing bikes with 32 cyclinder engines or something weird like that. But you're right, large quantities of enthusiasts equates to lots of money to use in the pursuit of speed and speed is measured in the consumption of cubic dollars per mile of hour of speed gained. HD's have a vast contingent of the faithful willing to spend any amount of money on improving the image of their preferred marque and Guzzi's just don't enjoy that kind of popularity. Maybe LSR for Guzzi's really means "Long Shoestring Racing".

I re-routed the fuel line to the petcock. As it became warm from the nearby cylinder, the bend collapsed and cut off the fuel. Not vapor lock at all as it turned out. Nothing invisible about it. It's a very tough, nicely adhered layer of paint. A common approach to power supplies for electronic components is a feature called "crowbar". Technically, a crowbar is a dead short. For a power supply, it's a near dead short. For over-current conditions or over input voltage conditions, a semiconductor is placed into full conduction from the power input lead to ground which either trips the breaker for the circuit or blows the fuse. So let's backtrack a few years to the Sport 1100i's/Daytona RS's. On those bikes, the regulator is mounted (bolted) to the fairing sub-frame which is in turn, bolted to the steering head of the bike frame. The mounting bolts for the fairing sub-frame ARE the ground return path for the regulator. Not a good thing. After a time, the bolts and the holes develope some corrosion. The corrosion is mostly resistive (and non-linear) early on. What this means is that in effect, there is a resistor in series with the regulator to ground (the bolt mounting connection is between the regulator and the frame). This is a very low resistance, especially at lower rpms where the current the regulator is passing back to ground (if any) is very small, so the voltage developed across it is probably not very large. At higher rpms, the regulator needs to dump more current to ground and the voltage across the bolt junction goes higher. At very high rpms (about 7000), the alternator is pumping out a whopping 90V or more (unloaded). I don't know what the loaded voltage is, but it is certainly higher than the electronics of the bike can handle (and this is why you don't run these things without the battery, it's the main load component). At these high rpms, the resistance across the fairing mount bolts can amount to several volts. Since these volts appear between the regulator and the real gound reference of the motorcycle frame, in effect, the regulator is setting it's output higher than normal. Output to the actual bike might be 20 volts for instance, while the regulator was thinking that its output was 14V because of the 6V developed across the resistive ground path. For the Sport 1100i's, this meant that the zener diode voltage regulator on the input of the ECU had to handle far more voltage and current than it could sustain. Usually, it shorted out, saving the ECU, but disabling the bike. A better design, just crowbars the input, blows the fuse and recovers. That is what I suspect the V11 Sport ECU does. So, back to my V11 Sport. The regulator is bolted to a painted bracket that bolts to the front down tubes just like everyone elses. That frame now sports a nice tough powdercoat paint job. The bolts and lock washers that hold the painted bracket are not going to give good conduction through the powdercoat. So, in the same fashion as the the fairing sub-frame on the Sport 1100i's, I now have a resistive ground. When I wind the engine up rapidly, the ECU fuse blows. Since the ECU functioned normally before the paint job, there is no reason to suspect that the ECU itself has a problem. As for vapor lock? Uh uh. This happened one block from my front door and the outside temperature was in the low 40's (Fahrenheit). Not exactly the conditions one would count on for vapor lock since there wasn't time enough for the engine assembly to reach an appreciable operating temperature and the outside temperature would not have been a contributor at all. When I get my transmission back and re-assemble the bike (again), I'll grind some of the powder coat off at the mounts and I will also add a ground lead to the regulator straight to the engine block. That should take care of the problem. Powder coat is tough, it takes a grinder to remove it. No wonder the lock washers can't get enough bite to make a good ground.

Pretty good Dave. We've taken an ECU fuse issue and turned it into a fuel pump current issue on what seems like the thinnest possible reasoning. I don't think the fuel pump can draw enough current to blow the fuse unless it has simply gone bad. Granted, it can't be ruled out, but I've simply never encountered anyone that has actually had or seen this particular malady. The reason is, if the pump were encountering that level of vapor lock, the bike itself wouldn't run. It's not likely the operator would leave the ignition on. Plus, as long as there is no vapor lock upstream of the pump, the pump should have enough force to pump gas past any bubbles or vapor lock. If the electric petcock is the vapor lock source and the fuel pump isn't getting any gas, the bike will still get shut down and probably in a far shorter time than it would take to overheat the pumpt. Back to the ECU. I had a phone conversation yesterday with a bike shop owner. He just powder coated a bike frame and his charging system doesn't work at all. I just powder coated my frame and I'm having a problem with a fuse. I'm not monitoring voltage, so I cannot absolutely say that the voltage is running high causing the ECU internal voltage regulation to crowbar and blow the fuse, but that does exactly fit what I think MAY be the problem. The other fellow is going to do a better job of grounding his regulator and expects his roblem to go away. I expect that mine will do likewise.

Yup. And a seized electric motor draws maximum current. For a finite length of time unless the input current. I had to think about Cliff's post for a second there. The fuel filter and pressure regulator are both downstream from the pump, so in this case at least, the pump will not be freewheeling like the vacuum cleaner example. I think the pump has it's own internal regulator/sensor though and simply shuts off or idles down when max pressure is reached. I mean, according to the schematic, it gets 12V all of the time when the circuit is energized, but it only runs hard for two seconds when the system gets turned on, so whatever is doing the two second throttle back must be integral to the pump. Oh wow. Two second throttleback. Sounds like were launching a space shuttle. Can there be back EMF on a motor with the shaft stationary? I always assumed that would make it a straight inductive load and that counter EMF was only produced when something was moving. I has been a very, very long time since I was in electronics class.

Our fuel pump is on a different fuse. I can't give too much credence to the fuel filter/pressure regulator story. Either one could put the fuel pump (we are talking an EFI system here too I presume) into a mode where it's pumping hard, but I would think that if the pump were drawing enough current to blow the fuse because of the lack of fuel flow, the vehicle would already not be running. More likely, this story originated with a fuel pump running in an empty fuel tank that overheated and seized. That would blow the fuse in a most grand manner. I'm betting that the powder coat is making for a bad ground. Since the bike is apart - again - I can grind some paint off at the voltage regulator mount point to ensure an adequate ground and hopefully that will fix the problem.

I still want to know if you're just using it to hunt Armadilloes...

As a guess, I think they probably looked at the fuel pressure:flow for the injector as listed by the manufacturer. Pretty simple math for that. Limited the percentage of influence the PCIII has over the injedtor pulse length avoids having to develope a complete map of your own. It's sensible enough as an add on piece of hardware. If you can go the whole route and optimize the ECU itself, you wouldn't need the PCIII. It probably boils down to simple economics and warranty issues. The PCIII far less expensive than a good dyno tune and you can simply remove it and then take the bike to the dealer. While a dealer is not likely to discern that the map of the factory ECU has been changed, you might lose the unit if the dealer trades it out as part of a repair - then you would lose an expensive investment. Going back to the injector pulse for just a bit. The injector is an electromechanical device. Under ideal conditions it sprays a consistent pattern with no dribbles etc. If some crud makes its way into the injector, it's bound to change the effect of the ECU signal, and not in a positive fashion. Those injectors have an itty-bitty screen filter in them. They're about a $1.50 each but you have to buy $25 worth when you find a source. Or at least I did. Now I have enough spares for the next 10 or twenty years...

I'll have to fit the Rabid Transit fairing over it sometime to see how silly that looks. Actually, the hardest part is finding a connector to match the earlier wiring to the newer stuff. I have enough parts to mount a couple of these - and no connectors. The other difficult part will be to buy some clipons that mimic the fit of Helibars.

As much as I like the looks of the V11 Sport, IMHO, the Sport 1100's/Daytona RS's have the best lines. Too bad it takes more than just a little hacking to fit one of those fairings to a V11 Sport. It can be done though, but the riding position would be strictly low clip-ons.

I'll guarantee you the bike is cheaper to operate...

Here's another one: DÄS-GUZZI Prova RS Under Umbauten. I've never found a price listed for it though. I believe it requires some welding to the sub-frame and may not work with the stock Guzzi colostomy crossover of the Sport 1100's and possibly not with the stock crossover of a V11 Sport either. I'd like to know more about the one posted above too. There had been mention on the old Australian Guzzi Forum of a Kawasaki stand that fits with a little bit of adaptation. Never could get any details out of those folks either though.

And they showed a prototype electric shifted transmission on a V11 Sport last year or so too.

Yeah. Do. It has to go and it really is a good learner bike (read - it's had it's "drops"). It runs a whole lot better since I converted it to a single cable throttle set-up. If you know Pat Hayes, one of the California small-block gurus, this is his wifes former bike. She moved on to an EV and a Centauro, but she started with this one. It's well broke in, 38,000 miles when I got it and I've added another 4,000 or so in the last year while my V11 Sport was being reincarnated. Never gave me any problems, just doesn't get terribly good gas mileage. Probably jetted a bit rich.

Paul has one for a Sport at http://guzzi.daytona-it.com/ under Parts & bike sale.

Joe Kenny Check out this guy. He periodically makes some billet brake pedals for the V11 Sports. A whole lot better than the stock ones and likely to be cheaper as well.

Guys around here typically take their V11 tires down to the local Buell/Ducati shop. I've used the BMW shop locally (they scratched the rim pretty good) and the Suzuki shop (did great work). Now I do it myself. I have a large supply of expletives to go with the knuckle busting. I do have one half of the Harbor Freight thingy, and that worked mostly okay, but if you weren't extremely carefull, you good bend a brake rotor. I've just purchased the rest of the rig and the next tire change is due if I ever get my bike back together (again), so I'll make my own report at that time. Judging from my experience, everything that Fred did is entirely appropriate to the exercise and may be the optimal configuration. Some of it makes me embarassed because I should have figured it out myself. Fortunately, Fred leads the way and I'm content to follow.

Fred Harmon's page on tire changing with the Harbor Freight tire changer. Everything you need to know is at the URL above. Kudos to Fred Harmon.

Well, it's useful to the extent that there are obviously some posts in the techinical sections that I missed. Since the image file name includes the post, it should be possible to locate that specific post. I don't know if the search function supports that, but I'll give it a shot one of these days. Also, no points to the guy who threw a photo of the late not-so-great Lolo Ferrari in the mix. She displaces more than the bikes we ride.

Well used Goose. Euro bars, Ducati (modern) switchgear. V11 Sport mirrors (finally found a bike they work well on!). Odyssey type battery. Corbin seat. All possible mechanical upgrades - transmission etc. Police type heavy duty sidestand. Bike on right in signature photo, but before the new bars etc. $1500

If you're completely insane and on the left coast, I have an 84 V65C that has to go before I move. All of the mechanical upgrades, Corbin seat and updated handlebar controls (Ducati type Italian generic) and a very reasonable price.

That's because you didn't mount the HD required leather tassles that go with it :!: