callison

I wonder how the Ohlins rate against the WP's that were installed on the Sport 1100i's? My personal, uncalibrated, seat-of-the-pants feel is that the WP's on my Sport 1100i are more supple than the stock suspension on the V11 Sport. I put a few miles (too few) on the V11 Sport Corsa at the National and couldn't determine if the Ohlins were better simply because the course and speeds didn't exercise the Ohlins enough to make an observation. Drat!

Dave Richardson of Moto International says that a 110 front and a 160 rear are a very good combination with a light feel. I use stock sizes in a Metzeler M1 Sportec series. Very happy with the tires and I get 5000+ out of them.

Personally, I wouldn't make the effort to get the stuff out. There is a very small rectangular hole at the bottom of the bell housing. Eventually, the rubber powder will work its way out this hole.

Use the stock gap. The coils are from the same manufacturer and are built in the same way, they just have another winding in them is all.

I just got back from a 2850 mile 8 day trip to the National in the the great North Wet. The only things that went wrong with the bike were the two screws holding the instrument panel loosened up and the bracket for the front brake reservoir broke. I did manage to drop the bike while making a u-turn on an incline and broke a turn signal, but that is not a bike failure. Didn't add any oil and only added air to one tire in nearly three thousand miles. It does appear to be slowly leaking on the front engine gasket now, so I need to clean and tighten and see if that cures that problem. Highest gas mileage was 38.93 mpg, highest speed was 124 on the digital bike speedo and highest altitude was 8511 feet and the bike ran just fine even up there. It didn't start out this way, but the trip became a "Ring of Fire" tour. I did six volcnoes, Mt. Mazama (Crater Lake), Mt. St. Helens, Mt. Ranier, Mt. Baker, Mt. Shasta and Mt. Lassen - in that order. After viewing the blast zone around Mt. St. Helens, I will never, ever, live in the shadow of a dormant volcano. Period.

My old Honda 350/4 had two sets of dual output coils and two sets of points. The coils were connected such that the outputs would fire the cylinder under power (compression) as well as it's balance mate 180˚ degrees out on the exhaust stroke. The spark in the exhaust stroke is the "waste " spark as it doesn't provide anything to the combustion process. The point here is that it only took two sets of points and coils to fire a 4 cylinder engine. I believe this a pretty standard approach for parallel 4 cylinder bikes. I talked to someone, can't remember who, and a waste spark on a Guzzi engine is also harmless, so ignore it and concentrate on the basics. The dual output coil needs to have a load on each of the spark leads or the voltage developed when the primary field collapses will be high enough to destroy the insulation - ruining the coil (same for a single output coil). So I would say, don't attempt to test it, hook it up correctly and assume that it's going to do it's job in the same fashion as a single output coil. It is for this reason that you do not make the spark plug gap too large. If the arc resistance is higher than the insulation punch through, the voltage will seek the easier of two paths and punch through the insulation ruining the coil. Too small a gap, and the spark loses effectiveness. Manufacturers specifications for spark gap measurements reflect the choices of the coils quite effectively. The other things that can affect spark gap resistance, such as high combustion chamber pressure, are not likely going to be approached by a streetable engine, so I would discount their effect on the discussion. Today's word is bifilar. This is how ignition coils are wound as opposed to the standard transformers you find in the power supply to your stereo.

This wouldn't be the first time I'm sure. The plug probably bounced around until it was thoroughly pulverized by the flywheel gear and it will eventually work its wayl out of the bottom vent on it's own. If you want to hurry the process along, you can spray electric parts cleaner into the plug hole to carry the small bits out, but there is no reason to do so unless the thought of powdered rubber in the flywheel area bothers you.

The side frames Joe got are from a Sport 1100i. Same part number as those of the V11 Sports. I checked. I even called the guy who had them and told him to hold them for a buddy of mine (Joe) but Joe's eyesight is real good and he had them scarfed even before I could tell him about them the following day.

2nd guess. Engine for a fire fighting pump?

I ran into a guy with a modified California at last year's rally in Prescott Arizona. He had stuffed a Sport 1100 cam in his 1997 California. To let it have enough fuel without fiddling with the electronics, he had the pressure regulator adjusted to a higher pressure. He said he had done nothing else with the bike and that it ran great. I don't see why this would not be a an appropriate method for his bike as everything else except the cam was stock. Mike Rich says the California heads are actually better than the Sport heads, so maybe the guy with the California was on to something.

I'm going to say Red China as the country of origin. Just a wild guess though.

Looks like Marelli does too.

I think all of these manufacturers are under the Tyco conglomerate. I did eventually find the vendors drawings through this web page : http://catalog.tycoelectronics.com/TE/bin/...0018^M~FEAT^G~G and they seem to be have originated in Japan. The darn connectors could be produced anywhere, but where they're sold at is the problem.

If you go to Cliff's web site for the My16M and look under the early developement history part, you'll get a fascinating read on the gestation of his effort. So... 1. He didn't start closed loop. He runs that way now. 2. There is a photo under the developement part, but here it is anyway: 3. No one is having any luck obtaining a source on the ECU connector used on a V11 P15. It is apparently an Amp SuperSeal made my Kawasaki Heavy Industry (from the mfr's drawings at any rate) and is closely related to part number 9-1437287-9 which isn't quite the right connector as this part has the type 2 keying (we need type 1) and it's a 90˚ PCB connector where we would prefer a straight/vertical one. I have a call in to the Tyco tech rep and may or may not get an answer some day as to the real part number. Worse, it's not likely to be available in the USA except maybe in quantity purchases (read thousands). We'll see. I have a spare ECU that after I've finished an experiment on, I may send it to Cliff so he can gut it and put in an new version of his board. I can't see that this would be a preferred route for this kind of endeavor though, but for the one experiment it would be all right.

Al, I'd suggest a call to Mike Rich so he can explain the peculiarities of the MG squish band and chamber design.

I think Pierre has covered the most ground on this path. He has dual plugged his Sporti and run various timing curves on a load cell dyno. He did not finish up using stock timing. It was easier to change curves on the old bikes because they had mechanical advance, not changing it because you don't have the computer or software to adjust it on an ECU should probably not be interpreted as not being necessary, but rather that not changing it won't have any negative effects. I think there is still a possibility for further enhancement of running characteristics for a dual plugged V11, but it doesn't look like something that needs to addressed in the immediate future.

That sucks. Most Guzzis (not all, obviously), are reasonably set-up and run from the dealer which means they never have to deal with MGNA. Here, where MG's reputation is made or destroyed, we have MGNA telling a customer to take his vehicle several hundred miles to another dealer and use up his valuable time. If MGNA had any style or competency, they's fly their tech rep out and fix the bike where it sits.

One would assume we're talking about a V11 LeMans here, but just for clarification purposes, could you elaborate as to what model and year your Guzzi is and if it is MG or aftermarket windshield?

So much for my theory. I think Mike Rich said that the Guzzi piston squish area was pretty primitive and the shape and spacing leads to secondary detonation. Under heat, that would be exacerbated, so perhaps that's the problem. It may be less on Al's bike because of the porting, but if he's running stock pistons, that particular behavior would probably still be in evidence. That's an eloquent way of saying I don't have a clue.

The conjecture part is okay, however, a Sport 1100i was having problems in Texas this week and it turned out to be the injector had a particle in it. The fuel filter is supposed to catch this stuff of course, but if it fails to do so, and obviously, that can happen, then the injector may spray unevenly and you can have a cylinder that doesn't fire or that continuously dribbles fuel. The injector was fixed by blowing it out with an air hose. I presume from the tip back towards the fuel line hook-up. All of this was after the injector on the other side of the bike was damaged when it got dropped and the owner had to shell out $364 to get a replacement at the local BMW dealer.

I talked to Mike Rich about those roller tipped rocker arms. They were a "weld up", not a production type of item and two of them failed in use with the expected disastrous results. There are no roller tipped rockers currently available for our bikes. Needle bearing rocker arms are available somewhere, although I don't know where at the moment and haven't looked for them.

Hey, I just checked out the MGNA web site. EVERY disk is a Brembo gold series or ORO disk. They're stainless and not the better cast iron and I always thought oro meant gold (in Spanish) but maybe in Italian it means "warp". Doesn't look like the Corsa has upgraded disks though, not in sense that the Daytonas did.

If you want "rarity" factor, how about the "rare", USA only V11 Sport TT. A black tank and seat cowling on an otherwise silver sport. It looks nice, and there were only 15 of them made, but come on... rare? Well, unusual, but no rarity factor inasmuch as all it is is a paint scheme that anyone can duplicate with ease, there's no special numbering to go with it and no certification or name tags. Yet MGNA passed it off as special. I like it, I've got one, and I don't think of it as anything other than an alternative paint scheme that they should have offered in the same quantities as the green or red Sports or whatever. The truly rare is any Moto Guzzi Sport bike with a factory blue paint job. Because there never was an official factory blue color on any MG sport bike, but about 30 of them WERE made and somehow, about 15 or 16 of them make it to the USA in 1995. They're purty bikes too.

Well, it's certainly plug and play in the physical sense. I would guess that the bike would profit by timing changes though. We'll let you lead the way

The HD guys get one because they drop money on their bikes in vast quantities and there's 3/4 of a million of those dinosaurs on the road.