Phil A

Mate, I did this to my Centauro in 2001....., so I guess that gives you some new verified durability data. These photos were taken recently while I was setting up a Centauro in England to tour Europe for 3 months two up with gear....... There is some more load/ durability data for you. As soon as I rode the new bike it felt like it was solid in the rear drive compared to the one at home. Hence these photos, for the V10 site, because as I toured Europe setting up Injection systems for friends and aquaintances, I couldnt believe that not one had this (to me) basic modification done. Dont force me to take sides...... I am mostly, well this thread anyway, here for the entertainment value.

Well, before the testing begins for squishibility, practicability, power transmission ability and durability I would like to register my design. :D

Yep heres one....... The rubbers are contained and cannot escape to be squished flat.

The warping may be a sign that things have been warm at some time. I would recommend the mod Ernst has mentioned.

This place must be the best value for no money entertainment on the net. Why would ya go to a circus when you can come here for freee he he he :lol:

I'm with you Guzzimoto, Go on a ferry trip and take steering damper with you..... When you get to the centre of the channel, go to the rear of the ferry and throw it as far as you can..... If your Guzzi needs a steering damper then its not set up properly. Phil A.

It never ceases to amaze me that people actually believe that they are buying a perfectly sorted and functional motorcyle when they buy a Guzzi! From Italians.... ha ha ha!! What you do get is a collection of parts designed and fitted by an emotional luigi who leaves piece of his soul with every part. With these parts you can build a very special motorcycle if you so desire. Nothing more nothing less.

Luhbo, I didnt say that the dragstrip was real world. You said that carbs wernt as good as injection and I used this to illustrate that in some circumstances the were in fact better. To answer your question, in some areas they have too much timing and in others they dont have enough. For example, when the cylinder is reasonably volumetricly efficient, they will use more timing to reduce emissions, but at idle the leaner they run it the better it complies, so to do this they need to retard the ignition. This is more or less opposite to what the engine likes. A happy engine lasts longer runs smoother, makes more power and uses less fuel. Design flaws in the inlet manifold for example (flat spot as you blokes call it) can be improved by changing timing and fuel figures. You can combine this with airbox design to improve efficiency to a point where it is negligable. It is usually still there to some degree, but it is masked enough for the average rider not notice it. One thing you need to be aware of as you experiment is that generally speaking, more timing moves the peak combustion pressures to earlier in the cycle, with a comparable transfer of heat, and less timing does the reverse. Another generalisation is that more fuel = less heat, less fuel=more heat. More timing =more heat and less timing =less heat. and making heat at the right time is what this game is all about.

Arnt the epa the people who wanted us to believe that pumping cold air into an exhaust manifold would give us clean air out the tail pipe? My experience is that for any given max hp figure, flat slide mikunis will give you a faster 60 foot time on the drag strip than injection. Guess I spend more time doin it, than ROFLMAO. There are tooo many things to learn to do that. By the way, I prefer injection overall. Half reasonable engines make around 4hp /cubic inch. This vintage crap we play with doesnt even make 2. This doesnt mean its not fun, you just need to keep a perspective on where things are at. If we tune a bike with std exhaust, injection, etc, etc, get it to do faster and quicker figures than the factory, and use less fuel, then just maybe we have got a rough idea of what is going on inside that engine. If you then add something like Cliffs simple, efficient, (compared to the factory one) and cheap computer you have got some real learning aids. Wasnt there a Dr John who showed the factory how to do it a while back? Pretty sad isnt it when 10 years later there is still nothing coming out of the factory with similar performance. The critics said that the Daytona was 10 years behind the times. Where does that leave the factory now??

This is just a general reply to get you thinking. With this system, ie 2d, (ie two reference points on a pre-written map) you will never get even close to ideal ignition timings. A very rough generalisation will tell you that there are two main issues that conspire to keep you in the dark. One is that you need a 3d system to give you a load reading to give you anything like a reasonable figure for timing settings for any given set of circumstances. The other thing is that compression ratios are a dynamic situation, ie changing with load, speed, air temp, atmospheric pressure etc, etc. and as far as i have seen there is no system which even looks at dynamic compression figures. Fuel injection systems at the moment are about where carbies were in the early 1900s so do yourselves a favour, buy one of Cliffs computers, so at least you have a learning tool to have some fun with, and ride, ride, ride. Regards, Phil A.

Skeeve, You will find that you will need two bottles. One with a longer thinner neck and one with a shorter steeper neck. Start with the flatter one and get the outside part of the bell done first. Then use the more tapered one to "throat" the bell. Yes I know this sounds arse about, but you will see why as you do it. "all is not always as it seems" Another tip is to heat the plastic in the exact place you want things to happen. You wont get much if any heat transfer through the plastic. Heat the plastic until it goes "Shiney" that is its critical temperature. Dont try and do too much re- heating on top of each other. Simply heat it up.... do some molding then quench it with water. Then repeat the process. If you keep adding too much heat on top of each process, you will get the whole thing out of shape. Yes, the hole sizes are just a comprimise on noise and filter life. If you want maximum power, throw away the airbox and the pods and put bell mouths on the injecter bodies. Phil.

I know am a constant source of amusement to you Pete, but ya cant argue with the horses i can find that are tied up inside these things just waitin to be let loose All of the comments made on this last page sound fairly valid to me however due to time constraints I wont try and answer each one. One thing I will say, is that that I believe that once the bike is moving, the temperature difference between the front of the airbox and the top of the box is minimal. I will just try and give you a simplified version of the logic that went into each modification. Thinking time was over aperiod of months and months. No I dont sleep. The bellmouths I think, speak for themselves. There is heaps of data published on this topic. The principles I use have been used forever. It is the application to which it is applied that usually requires the thinking. In this case it was the fact that 30mm snorkels wont supply 50mm throttle bodies! That is a no brainer. Because the air box adds resistace then you would need at least 2 x 60mm supplies. Is it really that hard? The bell mouths can only be made so big. We still have a deficit to make up. Ok ok we now get to the holes. As previously mentioned, we have a wayward harmonic screamin around inside the air box. As the supply holes to the box (30mm) are smaller than demand (50mm throttle bodies) then there must be a low pressue situation in the box. The lowest pressure is going to be in that back corner of the box. Try and imagine that you are diving head first into the engine (via the airbox). What is the shortest route to the cylinder? It aint via the furtherest corner of the airbox I can tell ya. Sooo......... if we put a couple of holes in the corners of the box lid, we might just let out a bit of that errant harmonic, and if we are lucky the low pressure condition in the rear of the box might let some extra air in. Double bonus. Now....... the shape of the individual holes and the formation of the holes is exactly the same explanation, but it is the hardest to explain and understand. As the air begins to fall into the begining of the teardrop it forms a slight low pressure around its extremeties. IT being the "bit" of air that is falling into the hole. This in turn "sucks" more air into that low pressure area, which creates a bigger low pressure area which sucks more air etc etc. You need to try and visualise this in 3D. It makes a little tunnel of air or a tube of air heading into the hole. The first hole effectively creates a low pressure area around the extremeties of this tunnel of air (which it has stolen from the air travelling between the box and the tank) forcing the remaining surrounding air to move towards the centre and down towards the lid. As it moves toward the centre and down, we put two more holes in its path to further entice it down into the box as described above. Effectively the first hole has created a low pressure area moving down and in, behind it. Does this make sense? Dont forget that all this is taking place in a shape that is dictated buy the airbox lid and the fuel tank, therefore this is aided by the fact that we have a "relatively" captive supply of air needing to go somewhere. The teardrop shape definitely improves the flow for two reasons. One is utilising the vacume or negative supercharger effect, and the other is that it keeps the air from tumbling over itself at the edges as it does through say, a square hole in a flat plate. Hope this helps.

John, Yes I did remap at the lower rpm settings, especialy under half throttle. This is where I found some of the greatest gains. This also applied to the 1100 sport I did. The rideability issue was my main motivation for all of this with the V10. My bike will now willingly walk away from 1500rpm in top gear. This is not something I make a habbit of, but it will. I have remapped every piont of the original map. Greg, you will be surprised how much difference the teardrop holes will make all the way through. You will get as much or more gain than the original 3 holes gave, and will probably fill in the deficiency? you found over the cut away lid setup. This improvement came as a vision at 2 am one morning, (why I keep a notepad and biro near the bed!) It took some time to test and get a design I was happy with. It took me a while to understand why it works, but there was a logical explanation once I worked it out. Probably wont bore the masses with it.. Im guessing you can work it out if you look at it long enough. Phil.

John, 1. (a) as you bellmouth the snorkel you actually considerably improve the throat of the snorkel. The snorkel is not quite as bad as it seems as the id is fairly large due to the original reservoir shape in there.We just utilise it better. (b)the snorkel protrudes down into the faster moving air flow than at the top of the air cleaner lid itself. Does this make sense? Therefore "scooping" air up into the cleaner lid area. ( c ) A hole simply drilled into, say, the front of the airbox will not flow anywhere near as much as a hole fed by a bell mouth. 2. Strangely enough, the top end performance of a standard bike, given the limitations of aircleaner snorkels/mufflers, airbox design, exhaust etc is actually half reasonable. I believe this to be so, because it is these figures that are advertised to sell or market the bike. eg 85hp at 7500rpm etc. When we improve things it is more difficult to get big gains, top end, due to the original effort spent in actually getting the top end right in the first place. In answer to your question. yes, the factory settings are already nicely lean to maximise performance, so further airflow yields very little gain if you retain the original fuel settings. 3. In this area we achieve greater gains than you would believe possible. In fact we get a 4% (approx) gain from idle. I found this hard to believe at first, however I guess that the same decrease in resistance that gives us the top end must also give us better flow from the bottom up. In fact I have improved torque at 2800rpm by approx 25%! which is way more than we get in the top end. Therefore this mod to a std bike without correcting the fuel delivery, will give you worse stalling/surging/hicuping than original. Greg, the initial mods were round holes as described however as I supply this design with my maps I figured it is all around the world by now. You will be surprised how much difference it makes. Please excuse my ignorance, What is the BMC? Ciao,

Maybe this will explain things a little clearer. These mods will make your engine run lean so I dont recommend them them to anyone who does not have the provision to add more fuel to compensate. ie My16m or similar. Pierre, exhaust rear mufflers are 2'' straight through. Centre muffler is stock. For the mods described no modifications were done to the bell mouths or the ram tubes attached to the throttle bodies. YEP, pods on stock runners with airbox removed and these airbox mods give similar hp figures. YEP, this was a "noise and filtration driven approach " Regards, Phil A.