Tom M

March 15 "On this date in 1921, Moto Guzzi was formed by Carlo Guzzi and Giorgio and Angelo Parodi in Genoa, Italy. With a history marked by highs and lows—Moto Guzzi has seen success in World Championship racing and endured a constant battle with financial bailouts and acquisitions—a buyout by the Piaggio group in 2004 gave the Italian brand a breath of new life." from http://www.roadracerx.com/features/speed-dating/speed-dating-march-15-21/ I hope they can make it for another 89 years but I think just getting to 100 is going to be rough...

I suppose I wouldn't be dragging as much if it weren't for my size 12 boots... We just had about 8" of rain here that pretty much wiped out all of our snow & ice. I just finished putting my LeMans back together last night so I'm really looking forward to getting back on the road this weekend! Hope yours melts soon too

I need to adopt your silly riding style Søren. I ended up taking a much wider line than intended through a bunch of corners last season because I was dragging my boot on the road. If I didn't ride with the arch of my foot on the peg all of the time that wouldn't have happened. I do have the Motobits kit so my footpegs are a little lower than stock which makes boot dragging more common but also more scary because the footpegs don't pivot. Here's what we all should be doing if we're pushing it: http://www.tonystrackdays.com/category/5272/foot-positioning.htm

There's probably a solvent that will clean it off but I just dug the stuff out of the allen heads with a safety pin.

Søren, It doesn't have a LeMans fairing and the green isn't BRG, but maybe this will help you pick a paint scheme? I don't know who the "The Rickster" is but I like his paint job.

Hey Raz, I just noticed that I had bookmarked this earlier thread on the oil circuit. Hope it helps... http://www.v11lemans.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=8466&hl=suck&st=0

Nope. All of the V11 factory relays are somewhat suspect. For a long time on this forum the standard response to many electrical problems is change all of the relays, and it does seem to solve a lot of problems. Even though I didn't have any electrical problems when I bought my used V11 I swapped all the relays for GEIs from Dan P and haven't regretted it. No relay problems for me in 5 years. The two best sources for quality replacements are www.dpguzzi.com/relay.htm and www.motratech.com . You can replace both your 4 pin and 5 pin relays with a full set of five 5 pin relays from either of these vendors and avoid a lot of grief and aggravation that some here have gone through due to flaky factory parts. Going to all 5 pin relays also allows you to swap any of the relays around if you suspect a problem. Good luck!

Once you get a crossover mounted you'll probably want to get a Power Commander to get the most out of your modifications. Welcome to the slippery slope Bob! My wife doesn't get it either...

I've swapped back & forth between my stock ECU and the Ti ECU with appropriate PCIII maps for my setup. My butt told me that the Ti ECU pulled harder from about 5k on up and a dyno run confirmed it. The stock ECU has better throttle response below 5k though. The dyno guy that I used suggested that the Ti ECU had a more aggressive timing map. If I could blend the two together it would be perfect!

There's nothing slower about the red framed silver V11s. Rumor has it they might be faster on a twisty road. IMO a little louder than stock is nice, but everyone has their own definition of what is too loud I guess. I have the MG Ti cans and they were like that before I added an FBF crossover. They're still OK below half throttle but I think they're a little too loud when I really get on it. The crossover really did help eliminate the 4krpm torque dip that my bike, like most V11s, had.

Those look GREAT Bob! I love that style of reverse meg mufflers. Are they loud?

The Moto Guzzi factory Ti exhaust kit did come with a "race" ECU. It looks like NakedV got aftermarket Mistral cans. Ponti, weren't you in the market for a new exhaust a while back? Any progress?

Hi Doc, I bought some FBF stainless valves off of ebay a while back when they were clearing them out for $20 each. I was planning on pulling the heads this winter, and given the number of folks here who have found a lot of valve stem and guide wear I knew there was a pretty good chance I'd need them. It looks like they're still selling the valves on ebay. They might be a good investment for anyone planning on keeping their V11 for a long time since the factory valve stems aren't known for their longevity. http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/Moto-Guzzi-V11-Valves-Stainless-Steel_W0QQitemZ360198567588QQcmdZViewItemQQptZMotorcycles_Parts_Accessories?hash=item53dd81f6a4

I don't know if there would be a clearance issue there Raz. I'm sure Mike could tell someone how much material could safely be removed from the head before things get too tight in there, or someone could use clay to check the clearance if there were any doubts when assembling the engine. How are you coming on your rebuild?

Most folks here who have tried a thinner rear tire found it made turn-in easier. Doc is spot on about getting your sag and springs correct for your weight. Lots of compression damping is a lousy substitute for stiffer springs. If your springs and preload are correct for your weight you can always slide the forks up through the triple clamps 10mm or so to get a little quicker turn-in, but I wouldn't recommend that until you have your springs and sag dialed in.

Progress Report: Mike Rich finally got enough orders for another run of pistons back in January (thanks Slavek) so I bought a set. I had his vendor that applies the anti-friction coating on the skirts apply a thermal barrier coating to the crown too. Mike said he doesn't typically offer the crown coating because it didn't show any power gain on the dyno, but I'm not looking for more power with it, I'm looking to eliminate my pinging problems. Vendors who offer this coating claim it reduces the likelyhood of pinging so I'm going to give it a try. I sent my heads to a local machine shop to have them replace the valves and do whatever else was needed. Turns out I needed valve guides and valve springs. The guides I expected but the springs were a complete surprise. The shop said mine were out of spec so I'm getting new ones. Greg Field cut me a great deal on a set that were installed in a head but never run. Thanks Greg! I'll be picking up the heads this week and hope to have everything back together in a few weeks. Here are some pics of the MR piston next to my stocker. FWIW it weighs 586 grams with pin, clips and rings. I used the Raz trick of connecting the two pistons with a wrist pin in a few of the shots. It's easy to see the bevel that he uses to match the chamfer in the combustion chamber, and to see that the dome on his pistons is lower than stock. I really really hope this means no more pinging for me!

Congrat's on the new bike! As Dan said the passenger peg mounts are good spots to tie to but you might want to use soft ties to protect the paint. There's no good place to directly attach tie downs on the front of the LeMans unless you use a Canyon Dancer or Cycle Cynch harness. I have both and prefer the Cycle Cynch. The Canyon Dancer tends to force the grips up the bars. http://www.cyclecynch.com/CCpages/CCproduct.html

Orange, black & white would make you popular in Philadelphia...

Use the links at the bottom of Belfastguzzis post for lots of pics and a good description of the replacement procedure. http://www.v11lemans.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=2905&hl=

K&N installed by previous owner which I cleaned and oiled it every 4k miles. I'll probably be going back to a paper filter now.

Ring gap spec for the two top rings is .40 - .65mm. I checked the two top rings at 3 points in the cylinder and saw a worse case of .673mm at the top position, best case was .61 at the bottom of the right cyl. Both measured .64 in the middle of the cylinder. I didn't bother disassembling and checkling the oil ring. Tappets and cam looked good except for a tiny pit on the face of both exhaust tappets. There's a pic of one of the tappets here: http://www.v11lemans.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=15401&st=30 I'm replacing the exhaust tappets while I'm in there.

I'm in the process of rebuilding the top end on my '02 LeMans. I bought the bike with 7k miles on it, it currently has 27k. I believe the previous owner used Castrol GTX oil, I've used mostly Mobil 1 full synthetic 20w-50. I used their regular auto oil for the first 10k miles then switched to their V-Twin formulation for the last 2 years/10k miles. Surprisingly to me my ring end gaps were beyond the wear limits at this relatively low mileage. I'm replacing my stock pistons with Mike Rich pistons during this rebuild, so when I was speaking with Mike I mentioned my ring wear. He said that every air cooled engine that he has disassembled that was run with Mobil 1 had excessive ring wear. He recommended that I run a semi-sythetic oil like Maxima along with a Lucas ZDDP additive package that's available at most auto stores. Given the ring wear that I saw in my engine I'm going to take his advice.

Welcome ScuRoo and congrat's on your new bike! Please post some pics of that Scura R if you get a chance. We never got that model on this side of the pond.

How about some combination of the red & gray that your LeMans was born with? I think you used to really liked those colors.

Any MG dealer should have or be able to get the MG stand. Forum sponsor MPH Cycles at the top of the page is a good option, as is Greg Field at Moto International.