callison

You don't even want to know how my the 90˚ adapters are, the one for the Sport 1100i is pushing $100.

As an individual, it makes sense to do whatever you have to do to accomplish something, such as routing the hose where you did, but when the factory takes that approach, it's just plain tacky. I hope that production bikes have a slightly more esthetic hose routing. Not demeaning your effort in any way, I would have done the same thing (and have on other bikes in the past).

I have a 1200 psi spray washer (made in Italy) and a handy supply of S100 surfactant (German). I douse the cases with the S100 and blast them clean. The same for any other portion of the drivetrain that doesn't have bearings, wiring or openings. Very infrequently, I will do the same to the area down in between the cylinders and up around the steering head, undersides of fenders etc. But mainly, it's to get the crud off of the front of the cases and cylinder heads. Bike must be cold of course, rinsed well and let dry before riding. Avoid the tumble dry cycle...

I'm on my sixth set of Pirelli MTR23/24's on my Sport 1100i. The rear tire for the Sporti is 160/70 and the rim width is the same as the one on the V11S. They consistently get 7500 miles per set. I had an MTR24 rear tire with probably about 1000 miles worth of tread left hanging around in the garage so I mounted that on the V11S Monday when the Sportec 170/60 finally reached minimums. To me, the handling is dramatically different. I'm not certain if I like it or not. It is very much more responsive but it also seems to twitch more on bumps when heeled over. This is pretty subjective, but for me, it is colored by the handling of the Sport 1100i which is a longer and much slower steering bike. The V11S is quick by comparison and making it quicker just seems sort of alien. I find myself going into corners a little hotter than before (a bad thing if you're calibrated to a road you've ridden thousands of times) because the increased tire circumference has the tach and ear rpm calibration off. The upside is the slightly increased gas mileage which has been as much as 2 miles per gallon at around 85 mph. There is no problem with clearance. The difference in height is mere millimeters. I have seen tire expansion at speed demonstrated on a test stand. The tire grew about four inches in overall diameter - at 270+ mph. This was on an LSR streamliner at Bub's in Grass Valley four years ago. Somehow, I doubt that my street speeds will get high enough to worry about tire carcass growth. For danged sure, 200 mph is well out of reach for any streetable Moto Guzzi!

Moto Guzzi parts replacement costs defy imagination. I wanted to replace the stock ignition wire set on my Sport 1100i with them purty red ones from a V11 Sport, so I ordered a set. I shoulda checked the prices first because my credit card got dinged pretty hard. $96. $31+ for EACH spark plug cap. Now I know why the V11s come with crash guards. On the way home from work Thursday night I somehow lost the left side Tecno bag. I shudder to think what that's going to cost to replace that plus the expensive BMW phase change cold weather clothes that I lost. Of course, bad luck happens in threes, so I'm waiting for #3. Number one was having the clutch blow on my California last week.

Sorry about the images, my web site ran out of space while doing some other stuff, so I deleted a bunch of stuff. They're back.

I'm using up the remaining tread I had on a tire in my garage that came off of my 97 Sport 1100i. It's a Pirelli MTR24 which is a 160/70 versus the 170/60 used on the earlier V11 Sports. I use the Pirelli's exclusively on the Sport 1100i and I think they're well suited to that bike. On the V11 Sport though, the 160/70 carcass feels... well, weird to me. I'm not used to it and it doesn't really go as well with the faster steering front end. The bike does feel dramatically lighter in the handling department, but it also seems to make the overall handling twitchier. Doesn't matter. I'll use up this tire and revert to the Sportecs or something. One interesting thing about the 160/70 tire though. Gas mileage showed an immediate increase of two miles per gallon at high speeds. Speedometer reads a tad low as well. These are subjective observations, YMMV.

Okay, check this one out... http://www.guzzimental.pwp.blueyonder.co.u...ial_exhaust.jpg In fact, check out the whole bike. Serious desire for speed here!!! http://www.guzzimental.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/

If you think the V11 Sports behave oddly, you should own a Sport 1100i. The FI is positively evil. So much so that Cliff Jeffries in Australia built and programmed his own ECU. He even went so far as to make it closed loop as well. So far, there are three of them. Two in Australia and one here in California on the Bugswatter. I think my bike has issues a little more dire than just the ECU though. As things get straightened out, I will make progress reports. Should you want to read up on it, you can peruse the entire gestation of Cliff's ECU at http://www.jefferies-au.org/My16M/index.htm

I don't know about the LeMans, but the V11 Sport headlight is far better than the headlights on any of my other Guzzi's. Give it credit for a good beam pattern at least.

I don't think the cross sectional area of the cross coupling is sufficient to actually have much of an effect. That and if the balance is good, there will be little actual transfer between the two cylinders. Some, but not enough to be noticeable.

In this context, does "off road" mean getting air under both wheels when lofting of a nice bump in the road while at speed?

These guys probably have something. http://www.daes-mototec.de/. I hope you can read German.

The Guzzi Y fitting is metal and is fine. Just replace the hoses attached to it. Since you have to cut off the crimped hose clamps, just be sure to use hose clamps intended for FI systems. Plastic fittings? Perish the thought, it's about 42PSI or more in there.

Dave, I don't see any reason why you would need to remove the filter listings. I've used several of these and have had no problems. I would suspect that all fuel injection filters are capable of withstanding at least 2X the pressure of a typical pressurized fuel system simply because of the litigious nature of our society. That leaves only the particulate filtering size, and flow capabilities, physical size and fittings to address. They probably all spec the same particulate size, we're dealing with motorcycles not behemeth V12's on luxury cars, so flow is not likely a problem. That leaves size and fittings and that's where your list comes in handy. FWIW, I have 3 MG EFI bikes, so I get the ignominious pleasure of changing fuel filters somewhat more often than most. On the California, it takes nearly 3 hours to change the filter. It is simply inaccessable without removing a ton of stuff from the bike. On the Sport 1100i, it is a lot better, but still difficult to access. On the V11 Sport (I haven't done mine yet and I'm 1000 miles overdue for the first change), the location of the filter is really good and I'm looking forward to it. For any of these bikes. The "Y" fitting that splits the filter output to each injector may have old fuel hose on it and will start leaking after a year or two. MG apparantly made about a quadrillion of these "Y" fittings with hoses at the initial start of FI bike production and stuck them in the parts bin. I have no idea as whether that batch was used up at some point and we're all now dealing with newer parts or whether the bikes are still shipping with old hoses. Just be aware that the "Y" fitting hoses will leak first due to age if that is the case. Additionally, go to a BMW shop and get the hose clamps intended for fuel lines as opposed to the ones intended for general purpose use.

When the Sport 1100i's and Daytona RS's showed up in 1997, the fuel filter was $61 U.S. currency. That's why there was/is an issue with the cost. I just bought (without checking first - shame on me) a set of sparkplug cables for a V11 Sport. The wires (2) came to $33.72 USD, the spark plug caps (2) came to $61.12 USD. If you don't think that this is some kind of unbelievable rip-off, then let me know. I'll be happy to take them off of my Sport 1100i and sell them to you for 2/3rds my purchase price. They have all of 11 minutes run time on them.

I rode a variety of nippon hardware in my youth when I joined the U.S. Navy, Honda 350 twins and fours, Yamaha RD350's (and production raced them too as well as an Italjet 50cc Vampire roadracer - I wished I had never parted with that little bundle of noise), a short bout with a miserable bitch from hell Kawasaki Z-2 and then I sold everything and got married the last year I was in the Navy. The motorcycle bug never leaves you though and at year 2 in the marriage (a good one - 24 years next week) I purchased a Yamaha 650 Seca, one of the best bikes I've ever owned - except for the wear rate on Japanese parts was horrible and the entire bike was sacked out at 38,000 miles. I tried to move a telephone pole with it and so that got replaced with a BMW R65. Nice bike, better with clubman bars, rearsets and a Ducati fairing. I sold that and quit riding for 13 years. Then one day in the van pool on the way to work, a buddy of mine handed me the 1997 Motorcycle Buyers Guide. I thumbed through it but I kept returning to the picture of this absolutely gorgeous, svelte, sexy Italian Moto Guzzi Sport 1100i. A year later I bought one. That was followed by a 97 California, a 2001 V11 Sport and a V65 which my daughter is learning to ride on. She's really inseam/height challenged, so the other bikes are not an option. My son rides too and learned to ride on the California. Since I returned to riding in June of 1998 I've put a collective 87,000 miles on my Guzzi's. I love them. Right now the Sport 1100i is being upgraded to the Cliff Jeffries My16M ECU in an effort to do away with the evil characteristics of the ECU's on those models. Oh yeah. I'm 51.

"ps I suspect fuel filters are not as critical for fit as oil filters." I would be more cautious than that. Fuel spewing out at 42psi tends to be awfully dangerous. More so if it's a fine spray. I haven't heard of any mishaps with the fuel filters on the EFI Moto Guzzi's, but I sure wouldn't want it to happen to anywone.

I don't think the injection covers will help much for that particular rust spot. It's just a low grade retainer clip and any moisture, whether direct or atmospheric will allow it to oxidize some. The shaft below it should have adequate seals so if you choose do douse it in WD40 or something to slow down the oxidation, I don't see where that would do any harm. The covers would probably be an additional nuisance at the next maintenance interval anyway.

I've seen the ad for the helmet brake light. Made in Denmark.

My right side one on my Sport 1100i had a spiral tear an inch and a half long on the inboard side. The throttle body hardware on this bike and the V11 is indentical. I had more than 56,000 miles on this bike before I discovered the tear. The tear occurred on the only boot I had ever tightened and I had made it really tight! I don't know if that contributes directly or not, but I would suspect that it aids in the disruption of the boot.

Nothing mechanically replaceable or socketed. You have that correct. As a by note. I have a Cliff Jeffries unit (My16M) due here in a week or two for the Sport 1100i. I plan to go the O2 sensor closed-loop route with that one. If that works well, I may do likewise on the V11. I have to get the Bugswatter running first. Torn intake boot, plugged idle passages (56,000+ miles of particulate matter intrusion past the air filter) and so forth.

It'll never drain out completely because the filter is inverted in the pan. It's about 180cc less than the manual specifies to get the oil to the middle of the sight window as well. I don't know about the Stucchi crossover, but on the stock one, a very shallow plastic tray can be placed on top of the crossover to route the oil past the exhaust system and into the oil receptacle. I made one by cutting the side of off the side of a plastic bubble pack on somthing I bought. I also made one for the rear box that hangs there and ensures that no oil gets onto the tire.

I'm in deep doo doo then. The V11TT is silver and black...

I know mine pings a bit, but I wear ear plugs and avoid the rpm/load regime where pinging occurs, so I really don't notice it. If my bike smells hot, it's because either the transmission vent or rear seal is blowing a little 90 weight onto the exhaust crossover and it is really noticeable when at a standstill.