Tom M

Sorry for the confusion but wow don't those two look alike right down to their sideburns? Here's the flip off pic that I mentioned (bottom left):

Congrat's to all the Guzzi racers at Daytona! I love the pictures, wish I could have been there. That MGS is beautiful. TV coverage would have been real nice. Is Guareschi a privateer or does he have some factory support? I'm somewhat surprised that he's still on a Guzzi since he works for Ducati. At least I think this is the same Guareschi: http://www.ducati.com/racing/07/gp/guaresc...lName=guareschi Somewhere recently I saw a picture of Guareschi flipping off a Ducati rider (Pegram?) after his race, can't find it right now. I'd like to hear the story behind that. Maybe he was just fooling around with a coworker?

I agree that it's great to have more than one filter available. Especially when my local dealer gets $22- for the UFI! (I mail ordered a few from MG cycle for about $8 ea) The thinner metal that I observed on the ST was the area between the filter threads and the gasket. That seems like a very bad place to save a few cents to me. I didn't check case thickness but if it is half the UFI that's all the more reason for me to avoid it. Another factor for rejecting it was (if I recall correctly) it didn't fit in my Guzzi oil filter wrench that fits through the manhole cover in the oilpan. A better filter to me would be one that meets or exceeds the UFI specs including the wrench flats, and isn't constructed with thinner steel that would be more likely to deform under high pressure, and is available locally for under $10. Granted the Guzzi will probably never generate enough pressure to blow the ST but it just seemed like it was designed to be as cheap to manufacture as possible, so I decided not to go with a $2 retail filter on my $12k+ (when new) bike.

FWIW I bought the SuperTech and visually compared it to the UFI that I removed from my bike. The ST filter was physically smaller, it's gasket was smaller in width, and the steel at the top of the filter was thinner than the UFI. I didn't like it so I'm sticking with UFI until I find something better.

I think the "beauty is in the eye of the beholder" cliche applies here. I don't like it but I seem to be one of the few here who thinks the factory green/red frame bikes are ugly so don't listen to me. I think those colors go together "like spaghetti and marmalade" as Antonio once said about Enzo's bike.

Thanks. I decided not to chance it and bought some gasket sealant.

Is it OK to use teflon tape as a thread sealer on the fitting that the fuel pressure regulator screws on to? The factory had some kind of semi-hardening goop on there. I'm not sure if I should use some gasket sealer or if teflon tape is OK.

Congrat's on your new V11! The factory Techno soft bags turn up on ebay from time to time. The factory tank bag is real nice if you can find one. At least one guy here (Greg?) ditched the factory frame mounted fairing and went to a fork mounted headlight/flyscreen setup. I'm sure a search will turn up the info if you decide to look into it.

I'm guessing England? Sorry...

Worcester is great for me but I probably wouldn't be a regular. Too much house stuff and kid stuff going on.

Hey Turo, If you're still looking there's a local 96 Sport that's been hot rodded a bit for sale on the Guzzitech site: http://www.guzzitech.com/Classifieds.html No price there and I don't know the owner or the bike.

Going from my not always reliable memory, I removed my fairing by pulling the bolts that attach it to the brackets above the rocker covers, the turn sigal bolts, the front air scoop bolts, and the rear view mirror mounting studs. See the illustration on page E7 in the parts manual for clarification. I didn't remove the fairing mounting bracket or headlight so i don't know exactly what's involved there. Looking at page H3 I'd guess that you only need to remove a couple more screws to get the whole bracket/headlight assembly off? Parts manual is available HERE. Even though it says it's for the 02 Le Mans it's really for 03/04. AFAIK the fairing stuff is the same for all the LMs.

Thanks. I'll have to give that a try.

Every time that I've removed my tank I've had a problem with the petcock and especially the fuel pressure regulator hitting the airbox as I lift the rear of the tank. The back of the tank also contacts the front edges of the tailpiece as I lift it off. I always push the tank as far forward as possible and it's still tough to get off. Well, last weekend the fitting that the FPR is screwed on to actually snapped off when I was removing the tank. Thankfully the tank was empty so I didn't spill fuel all over my basement! It seems like the tank mounts on the frame should have been welded on a little farther forward on my particular bike. I might have to remove some material from the rubber tank mount pucks to get the tank on & off a little easier. Does anybody else here have this problem?

Sounds good. I'll PM you in a month or so once I have my bike back together and the weather gets better.

Thanks for sorting fact from fiction regarding preload method guys. I'll be re-springing my forks soon, good to have this info available Ratch, I agree that damping is what happens inside the forks and dampening is what happens when a fork seal blows. As long as you're bringing up the English language, I have a question about your posts. What are the apostrophes in y'er and f'er for? Until I signed on here I have never seen those words before.

I'd be up for that every once in a while. Not too far from my home either. There are a handfull Guzzi owners in my neck of the woods. One guy down the street from me has a V11 Sport and a Jackal. He's hardcore. When it's 20 degrees out and I hear a bike go by the house I know who it is. He said when he goes to euro bike night at Motomarket in Acton lots of Guzzi owners show up there. I believe he's active on the wildguzzi forum. I found myself opposite a Coppa Italia at the only stoplight in the booming metropolis of Boxborough while riding to work one morning last summer. I considered that a rare Guzzi sighting!

Yes I got it and I did respond via email thanking you. I'll let the forum know how I made out when I get the bike back on the road in a month or so and start changing maps and ECUs. Thanks again!

Here's the link to the Phil A airbox mod: http://www.v11lemans.com/forums/index.php?...=8924&st=30 Note that Phil suggested 3 holes with the middle one about an inch forward of the one shown in Guzzijack's picture. I did the mod but I can't comment on sound or performance until I get my bike back on the road.

Thanks for the offer polebridge. Would you have any interest in adding your map to the others in the fileshare section that Jason mentioned earlier in this thread? If not I'll PM my email to you. Are you using the ECU that came with the Ti exhaust or the stock ECU? If it's the Ti ECU I'd be interested in comparing your map with mine even though our bikes are a little different. I'd also like to know if you experience any pinging around 5k rpm like I do. I think I remember reading something here about the 03 and later ECU's, both Ti and stock, being different from the earlier ones. Anybody know for sure?

Ouiji, How about heating the alum before trying to break the set screws free? I'm planning on respringing my front end soon too. I'm going with the Traxxion Dynamics springs because of my weight. If I run into a problem you may hear from me!

I had the big brother to that bike, an '84 V65 Sabre (VF1100s), which were also known for cam problems. I bought it from the original owner who said he changed the oil regularly (dino). When I did the valve adjustment I saw that the cams were in fine condition. Since the bike had 18k miles and the cams were good I decided that there was no need to address the alledged oil starvation issue, especially since I changed over to synthetic oil. I believe there were bad batches of cams that caused most of the problems with those bikes. I guess what I'm getting at is if the cams look fine then just switch to a good quality synthetic oil and you should be OK. Some history on the cam problem here. I wish my Guzzi had self-cancelling turn signals like the old Sabre did. I sure don't miss those brakes though

Short story: Would anyone out there be willing to share their Power Commander map with me for a bike with the following setup? 2002 LeMans (no front crossover), Ferracci crossover, open airbox, either stock or Ti ECU. Apparently Guzzitech doesn't share maps anymore and there isn't much at the PowerCommander site. Long story: The previous owner of my bike had a custom PC map done after he fitted the MG Ti exhaust and "race" ECU along with a K&N panel in the stock airbox. The bike pinged a lot around 5k rpm when I bought it. Other than the 5 grand pings the bike runs great. I manually tweaked the map in the problem area and eliminated most of the pinging, but now that I've added an aftermarket crossover and done the Phil A airbox mod I suspect that I'll need to address the map again. Since I've heard of other Ti ECU owners having pinging problems in the same rev range I'm thinking of going back to the stock ECU plus a downloaded map to see if the Ti ECU's timing curve is responsible for my pings. I'd be happy to get a look at or try someone else's custom map for the Ti ECU too. Any help would be appreciated PS valves are set to world spec and no apparent air leaks. Plugs look a little on the rich side. Decarbon procedure had no effect on pinging.

I sometimes had a slight clunk that I could feel when chopping the throttle off when my bike was new (to me). It felt like loose swingarm bearings to me so I tightened the mounting pins up a bit and the clunk/rear end wag went away.

It's too cold and snowy to ride where I live now. I'm not complaining, I actually like the snow, but I'm really starting to miss riding the Guzzi. How about posting some pictures to make it even worse for us snow-bound types? I'll start with one of my own. Somewhere in the White Mountains of New Hampshire last June...