dlaing

I think that post is in the archive. Mine fell out and were replaced with I can't remember what size allen heads with lock washers. I seem to remember they are either 7 or 8mm threads. Mild Loctite might not be a bad idea Two years later, and holding fine with just the lockwashers. If someone wants to steal your bike, the smooth headed security bolts will do little to slow them down.

anybody got pictures of the stand up?

I was hypnotized by the sounds of a pair of Ti mufflers at the San Diego Rally yesterday. Seemed about as loud a Mistrals, and seemed less metallic sounding than other titanium of stainless mufflers. Very nice. A stucchi should complement them, and help out the midrange. But I have not seen any dyno graphs of the Ti mufflers, so the proof remains to be seen.

You are correct. The headlight relay is controlled by the starter relay which sends current to the headlight relay whenever the starter is not activated and it is done to allow more power to the starter. Unfortunately all the juice going to the headlight, brake/taillight, tachometer, and horn flow through a ten amp rated section of the relay. The same section is fused for 15Amps! The clutch switch allows the starter relay to activate. The sidestand switch in conjunction with the neutral switch control electricity to the starter, the fuel petcock, the ECU relay, and the ignition relay. I edited the initial post as follows Edit 10/12/03 Forget this option.(2.) After posting this, we discovered that it will not work....so go with option one or something else, like a higher rated relay, or a strategically wired additional relay. Until you fix this issue, avoid using the horn and the high beam flasher. And for what it is worth, the headlight is not deactivated by the kick stand switch. My last set of Bosch relays lasted for probably 15,000 miles, your mileage may vary and they are cheap enough that you could replace them regularly, so that is another option, but for optimal reliability, a fix is in order. A relay activated by the lighting relay and getting power from the #5 fuse, should do the trick. FWIW I have used the horn maybe four times, and the headlight flasher maybe fifty times. If you do not use the horn and flasher, your amperage should be under 10 Amps and all should be fine....I think.

Can you calibrate the speedos for various wheel sizes?

Regarding the headlight going off with the kickstand down, I think Dan mis-read it, due to more errors on the diagram. So, hold your plans for modifying the wiring. I stared at the wiring diagram for a bit and now my brain hurts.

I don't remember that either. But then again we almost always put the side stand up when the key is on. There could be a difference between models, and the wiring diagram probably has errors.

Great Album! What is the story with the Rock?

Eureka! I think I discovered a major cause of the relay failures on our bikes. About two years ago I replaced the relays on my bike with the grey Bosch units. Over the past month or two they started to fail. I ordered a new set from Dan Prunuske, and he took interest as to why the relay failed so I decided to investigate the cause. Looking at the wiring diagram on Carl Allison's site and looking at the specs on the relays, I realized that the current of the headlight and a few other current using devices passed through a 10 Amp rated section of the relay!!!! Drat! The Guzzi Engineers made a mistake!!!! But being an electrical layman, I was not completely sure, so I emailed a reply to Dan, and he agrees that there is a problem. He posted the following on the MGCL: From: Dan Prunuske Date: Thu Oct 9, 2003 8:58:48 PM US/Pacific To: MGCL@topica.com Subject: V11 Sport Wiring vs Relays Dave Laing recently contacted me regarding a failed Bosch starter relay on his V11 Sport. He thought the problem was that the Normally Closed terminal of the starter relay powered the headlights, not merely the coil of the headlight relay. I was skeptical (who would be so stupid?), but after checking the wiring diagram, he is correct. Worse, that terminal (rated at 10 amps) also powers the brake lights, the tach, the horn, some of the instrument lights, and is the reference voltage for the GEN lite! Arrrrgh. The high beam and the brake lights alone are about 9 amps, and imho, too much load on a 10 amp contact. (My normal rule of thumb is to use a relay capable of twice the anticipated load). So you ask, what controls the headlight relay? The stupid sidestand safety switch! Arrrgh. Nice going Guzzi. There is no horn relay - full current goes thru the switch. Loverly. Another buck saved. What to do? I'd suggest: 1. Install a horn relay. It's tolerable that this relay's coil is powered thru the headlight relay, but it's horn current should come from a fuse, not from the headlight relay. 2. Remove the white/green wire from terminal 87a of the starter relay and run it instead to Fuse 5 (this is the headlight power). Disconnect the orange/blue wire from terminal 85 of the headlight relay. Run a wire from terminal 85 of the headlight relay to terminal 87a of the starter relay. Now the only load on terminal 87a (the Normally Closed terminal) of the starter relay will be the coil for the headlight relay. The difference is now the headlight will still operate if the sidestand is down. Edit 10/12/03 Forget this option.(2.) After posting this, we discovered that it will not work....so go with option one or something else, like a higher rated relay, or a strategically wired additional relay. Until you fix this issue, avoid using the horn and the high beam flasher. And for what it is worth, the headlight is not deactivated by the kick stand switch. No doubt there are other improvements that could be made to this crappy wiring layout. For example, I'd be inclined to get at least the brake lights out of the headlight circuit. My mods suggested above should greatly extend the life of the starter relay. BTW, they are made on the assumption that the bike is actually wired as shown on the diagram. Bwa, ha, ha! Carl, may I presume that terminal 86 of the headlight relay is grounded? It's not shown as such on your diagram. Does anyone know which other relays on this model seem failure prone? Cheers, Dan Carl then replied that the presumption is correct about the relay being grounded through terminal 86. Obviously people are getting by with the wiring done as Guzzi layed it out. But if you want a reliable machine, I recommend doing one of the modifications that Dan suggested. Does anyone have any other ideas, suggestions, or questions regarding the relays? What other relays are failure prone? I seem to recall that some would not start because of the relays.

You bet! But I forget what the command is. upload? download? view? What is kind of cool alternative, is that you can load another map and compare it to the map on the power commander. The command for that I think is 'compare'. It is all pretty easy. Just don't delete the map that you paid big money for at the dynotuners!

You will need the 9volt battery power commander battery adaper. It is pretty inexpensive and they are very fast at sending out orders. Usually they process the order same day, They also sell an adapter for Palms®.

Correct. Setting sag to prevent extreme angles would be beneficial. To absolutely prevent extreme angles one may need shorter travel or a longer shaft. How you define extreme angles is another issue. Perhaps setting a bike to zero sag would lose little power, but I doubt it. I was thinking of setting the sag to minimize the angle and thus maximize the power. Perhaps there is little difference between 30% and 50% sag in terms of power loss and vibration. I don't know. My other question is that assuming their is significant power loss, what would be ideal sag? When you accelerate, does the bike squat? and if so, how much? Or does it jack under accelleration? Do typical road bumps cause the sag to fall lower, if so, how much? Perhaps the squat and road bumps make 33% sag an ideal setting, I don't know. But this is what I would like to discover. Of course all bikes are different and 35% might be ideal on one bike and 40% might be ideal on another, depending on suspension set up. Perhaps one could put a bike on a dynometer and do a run with the bike set to different sag heights. ...or Jeff could crunch some numbers and then we might know the theoretical ideal. PS you are lying, there is no sun in Wales!

Interesting...care to elaborate? Is that concerning vibration or power?

I have heard two things: 1) Sag should be about one third of suspension travel 2) Sag should be set on a shaft drive bike so that the shaft is in line with the transmission. Now I assume that in case 2 that the sag would be one half of the suspension travel. But would it make sense that if you set it to one half the shaft would spend more time below the centerline because of the bumps in the road? And because of that, perhaps one third sag is fine? Perhaps some of us are getting less power and fuel mileage because are sag is set too small. I imagine if I was going for a land speed record, I'd set up the suspension for maybe an inch of travel. Just out of curiousity, I wonder if anyone knows which Guzzi had or has the longest shaft. My guess would be the Quota. And no I am not suffering from shaft size envy But sometimes I wonder if the parallel swing arm would not be better scrapped for a longer swing arm and shaft. I guess handling would be sacrificed for marginal gains in stability, comfort and power.

So if you are running low on fuel, just keep popping wheelies!

If you want custom fit I think you'll have to pay about $84 for an 8 cylinder 8.5mm universal set. http://www.daymotorsports.com/product/593/v/2/ Compare that to $35 for a two cylinder 8.5mm universal kit from TPO parts. If someone wants to buy an 8 cylinder kit, I'll give you $21 plus $9 shipping and handling for one fourth of the Universal kit.

You might also check out Givi. They have a line similar to the stucchi, http://www.giviusa.com/ Personally, I like a fairing to surround the light, not just go over the top. checkout the vintage stuff from the place Joe C. recommended http://www.airtech-streamlining.com/prod.htm

And for relay cross refs http://www.guzzitech.com/Relays.html I recommend getting the Bosch relays from Dan Prunuske http://www.dotnet.com/~dprune/relay.htm He sells them for apparently no profit, bless his heart!!!

Doh! that's right. I forgot you went to Italy. Forget the plugs, let's see pictures and hear about the trip.

They look like excellent wires that should provide many years of excellent performance. The only thing that I don't like is snake oil talk on his website. Sure they will improve performance, but the difference between wires is usually pretty minimal. However I am running a pair of $3 carbon or graphite strand wires, which I would not be suprised if I switched to a better wire might give noticeably better ignition. They seem to do as well as the stock did. Yanking on cheap wires can destroy them, so I don't yank them. I do think that magnetic suppression is superior because it does not break down, it has lower resistance, and better noise suppression. Also thicker insulation is better, no doubt. http://www.tpoparts.com/products/racingwire.html You might be able to save a little money by getting their universal wires.

Dang! It is good for up to 500HP! I'd better start building up my engine. You'd think we could have used a lower powered version and then had enough power for fog lights! Maybe a resistor could be dropped in line?? And then we would not blow so many relays!!!!(maybe not) FWIW I think Al found the right part. Damn good searching! Al is the Google Master!!! I think the flow and pressure numbers are correct and it sure looks like our pump. Odd that they give the intake dimension but not the outlet dimension. 15mm sounds about right on the intake and 8mm would probably be right for the outlet. I like the blue anodized regulators.

It sounds like Captain Nemo is on the right track. The only things I can add to the great advice is: 1) measure the sag and adjust what you can. 2) Get the front and rear in equilibrium. ie. push down on the front and then push down on the rear. Adjust them to compress and rebound with roughly equal force. 3) try backing off the rebound a few clicks, go for a ride, tighten the rebound one click, go for a ride, tighten the rebound one click, go for a ride, etc. 4)repeat step 2 5)repeat step 3 etc. Now isn't that more fun than paying your dealer lotsa money? Note that there is a tendency to buy into the idea of turning up the rebound damping and turning down the compression damping. In general this makes sense, but in the real world it is easy to add too much rebound damping, and not enough compression damping. High rebound and low compression will make the spring compress under repeating bumps which can ruin compliance, comfort and cause easy bottoming. So the well meaning plan can backfire, especially if your springs are under sprung. Also too much rebound will not allow the tire to stay with the ground.

And where is David Gross? Sorry if I was harsh on the plug idea. They may work much better than stock because of the way the fuel flows from the intake across the path of the plug. ie. No indexing required.

Very funny! But seriously, like the twin plug setup, I imagine you might want to back off the ignition advance, rather than enrichen the mixture. And that is not as easily doable. Al, Have you tried running the dual plugs yet?

Everthing Al said!