dlaing

David, sorry for the delay, gosh, you sound like my 3rd grade teacher, From Charlie Brown and the Peanuts, "Waah whanh wanh wa" --the teacher Thanks for the post. Your numbers seem to imply that your Ohlins spring is very close to the same spring rate as the spring on the Sachs. If the sag is fine, I would blame it on the damping...and the sag is fine, so it must be the damping. Of course the lack of travel does not help... Sorry you have had bad luck with the rear shocks. You are really taking one for the team. I think we will all benefit from your experience and buy Ohlins! Thank You.

shoei TZ1 Light weight. Slightly better than average wind noise. Sheild is pretty scratch resistant. Cheek pads push cheeks against teeth, ouch. Good at high speeds. Fogs easily despite breathe guard and vents. Could breath better. A little over priced. Gialli Arrow Mono convertible. OK weight for retracting chin guard type helmet. Excellent fit, and ventilation. Stays cool. Stable enough at high speed. But weight is significantly heavier than closed face Shoei, and the helmet is noisey at high wind speeds. No problem with ear plugs. Safety of retracting chin guard helmets is questionable, but better than open face! Bieffe, forgot which model I had....I think it was their cheapest Snell approved model. Fairly Light weight. average wind noise. sheild scratched easily. Excellent fit. good ventilation. OK at high speeds. CHEAP to buy, cheap face sheilds, and crashed tested very well. The Shoei may be better at high speeds than the others because of the cheek pads which are uncomfortable, but better to be tight at the cheeks, than at your temple cutting off blood flow....

I guess when they shortened it 10mm you also got 10mm extra pre-load. Not saying that is the problem, but it could be related. Perhaps you need a shorter spring for the Penske. (Which might be unavailable) For the third time...got any sag numbers?

Now if the leak he repaired required him to move the input shaft, or if he froze up the gearbox by leaving a wrench in the gearbox, Guzzi may have a case, if not, he should threaten to take them to court, and if they do not budge, he should take them to court. If this was in the US, this would be a piece of cake for him to win.

Yah, that should work. Measure from the ground to the bottom of the rear reflector with the bike lifted then subtract the measurement with the bike loaded in riding position. That is your sag. It is good to have a helper measure when you are on the bike. But remember it is better to stand with the one you love than to hang or heaven forbid, sag with your hommies. A center stand would make this easy. Putting pressure on the crossover scares me since after a rear tire change at a non-Guzzi dealer that put the bike up on my cross over/muffler and may have been responsible for cracking the welds. But the stock crossover may be fine since it is also supported at the passenger pegs through the mufflers.

Why sure! And if you ever got around to measuring sag, I'd be curious as to those numbers, too. To use the settings, I'll need to lose about 30# and weigh what I did when I first got my license at age 16.

Very Well said! Sometimes I wonder if I would have been content with an 850 Lemans, but I love my bike and always dream of an even higher HP statistic. The porting seems like an expensive route to that end, but the valve job is eventually a necessity and well worth the money to have done right. And while the valves are done, it seems to make sense to do the porting....

great work! So I guess the next section is on damping. Here is a Question: If the spring rate is correct should compression damping be set to the minimum position? Theoretically it seems like only rebound damping is needed, but perhaps the bike is more stable and or less prone to bottoming with SOME compression damping.

But it is also one of the few 90+ crank HP aircooled twin valve twin cylindered production engines, period.

If the sag is "right" with the preload minimized, and it still rides like a freight train, we can assume it is the damping, correct? Your Sachs shock has 50mm of travel to give you ~100mm of wheel travel, so correct sag should be: Sport 20% 20mm 25% 25mm 30% 30mm 33% 33mm Touring Don't ask how I did the math Divide by 25.4 to get inches. FWIW I believe the spring rates are linear even under preload, but preload throws a wrench into calculating proper spring rate. So we cannot say that a 550# spring giving 15mm of travel should be replaced by a 275# spring if you wanted 30mm sag. But you might be able to assume for every pound over the rear axle that it takes to get it to proper sag, you could subtract that from the 550 lbs to find the proper spring rate. But this does not hold true because of the 2:1 ratio, so in fact that weight should be doubled. So, if adding a 100# wife gets the sag to a good number, than you need a 350# spring. WARNING: this is all pure speculation based on absolutely no experience. And even the logic behind the speculation may be wrong....

Sorry, I don't know the answer...But what is your sag with each bike? I assume all the preload is dialed out of your Penske???

Alright! We armchair mechanics agree! I just wish someone told me the lens popped off I guess I could have asked

I would say it will increase the over all brightness and evenness not the intensity and focus of both the low and high beam. It will be more offensive to oncoming traffic when in low beam. And you will be more likely to see things that are above the "cut off" edge of the Low-Beam. In high beam, I imagine the difference of offense, focus, and brightness is marginal. If the guard has scratched the reflector mirror up alot, you may lose focus. PS, I ain't no expert.

Hurry up now! We want to see before and after dyno results. You did do a a before dyno test, right? No? Oh, well. In any case it looks like Mike Rich pulled a couple of dead rats out of the ports!

Perhaps Vincent knows??? I guess Forza is the company. Interestingly I noticed Ferracci Italy sells a different line!?!

Youch! It sure is a big bumper. I think I am going to shave mine down a bit if I go to a firmer spring.

Drat! I did it the hard way! I tried to get the clear glass lens or headlight face off of the parabolic reflector, but I thought is was permanently glued on!!! So I slowly mashed the bulb guard with vice grips and needle nose pliars

I thought I got it from you guys too, but maybe it was one of these sites... http://www.tsrltd.com/sag.htm this site says, "Street bikes run between 25 and 33 percent of their total travel, which equates to 30 to 35mm. Roadrace bikes usually run between 25 and 30mm. " But their math is a little off, because 25 and 33 percent of 120mm would be 30 and 40mm. 30 and 35mm would be 25 and 29%. So, I would go with what Lex says. Lex also informed us of how it is important to not have too much preload, and that getting the right spring and fine tuning with preload is the solution for proper sag, rather than just cranking up the preload. I hope I phrased that right, it has been a while since Lex posted about it.

Oh lucky you! This is a hidden benefit because once you remove the low beam guard you will have a superior beam of light, that will not meet DOT standards but will give you more light where you need it. The trick is to remove the low beam guard. What I did took nearly an hour, but I was able to squash it with a combination of various pliars and then pull it out of the hole where the light blub goes. Be carful not to put too much pressure on the glass reflector or you could end up with broken glass everywhere and bloody hands. I did need to put some pressure on it, as the rim of the bulb's hole or socket aided in squashing the guard. Gloves may be a good idea.

The Brisk plug is a beautiful design that should out perform a conventional plug. I raised some doubts about its use in our engine because the flame front should reach the piston sooner, and in a worse case scenario, the spark's coronal discharge or worse, the spark itself, could theoretically jump to the piston at TDC of the compression stroke creating a hot spot on the piston. This is however all pure speculation, and these plugs could be the bomb I suggest that whoever tries these plugs should take a flash light and look at the condition of the piston before the brisk, go for a long ride, and then look at the condition of the piston head. The Brisk could be a good thing, but you don't want the Rabbi's knife to slip.

Not bad. It looks like a crossover might not make much of a difference with the Ti mufflers as the midrange filled in nicely. I am suprised that the peak power is not better. The Playboy® Ltd edition claimed a few more peak HP that is not seen here. But it is also surprising that the mid range is so full with very little dip in the torque curve and the dip in the HP is GONE.

Sag refers to the drop of the bike relative to the axle when both rider and bike weight are applied, as measured from bike suspended. Ideal sag is roughly one third of total travel. So, 1/2 inch of rider only sag is probably too firm, as it probably implies that your bike only sag is also less than 1/2 inch, and your total sag is probably less than an inch, while it should be more than 1.5 inches and less than 2.0 inches. But then again you are riding far up on the bike and you are not extremely heavy, so it may be ok. To measure sag you might try putting a plastic zip tie on the shock's shaft, gently put your weight on the bike in your riding position, on tip toes, then dismount, then lift the weight of the bike up so that the tire is suspended, and then measure the distance from the zip tie to the shock. The shock travels at about one inch for every inch of wheel travel, so double your measurement and you will get a fairly accurate sag reading. The tricky part is to lift the bike and suspend the tire, if you do not have the right tools.

You will find that clip ons with less rise than the naked's stock ones will pass less vibration to your hands. You could probably find a buyer for the stock clip ons pretty easily as some want the added rise.

For future reference, the headlight on Naked bikes pop off in maybe 30 seconds and back on in maybe 60 seconds, if an amateur is smooth with the moves. It is a little hard to aim the beam durring daylight, but other than that, pop the light off.

It was touched on a little... http://www.v11lemans.com/forums/index.php?...ic=96&hl=raceco but I would like to see dyno tests of different valve settings. I use .15/.20mm, but I bet I would get more power at .10/.15mm, especially at higher RPMs. I wonder if John T. gets so much more power than Al's because of valve settings??? I am basing this on John's dyno results before the aftermarket cam. Of course, once Al hooks up the twin plugs, all bets are off. Also, I am pretty sure valve settings are important for making power commander maps work between bikes.