GuzziMoto

Milling the heads on a Guzzi is not that expensive. It is easy to pop the heads off, take 'em to a machinist to have them milled,and stick the heads back on. You do need to clay the pistons for valve clearence, but that is not as hard as it sounds. Even if you pay someone to do the whole job for you, it still should be under a grand. And adjusting the timimg with TuneBoy or some other way is a more direct approach to pinging. I think that improving the squish is a good thing to do that can help with pinging by adding turbulence in the combustion chamber. It also improves power(we all like more power, right). But taking a little timimg out is a more direct approach that does not have the same benefits as squish, but it should stop the pinging. EIther way, it is not an impossible to solve problem. And it is rewarding when you improve your bike over stock. That's a thrill most Jap bike owners will never truely know.

Didn't the 2001 and earlier V11's have a 1 degree steeper steering rake? If that's the case, I would think the bearing kit that steepens the rake by 1 degree would work. It should give 2002 and later bikes handling like a earlier bike. I would check the trail and offset to make sure . But it should work. But the tyre thing is something to do first. If you have a 5" rear rim a 160 or 170 would help lighten the steering. A 4.5" rim should have a 160 on it. Also different tyres from different manufactors run different as far as width goes. Some companies make it easy to research rim and tyre width and others don't. Do some research. Remember what you want from your bike. What works for someone else may not work for you. Some say the early V11's with their steeper rake are nervous, but we took the steering damper off my wifes and it works even better. Heck, for that matter does your bike have a steering damper? That is another place to look. Dampers can help some bikes, but for street use they mainly band-aid a poorly set up bike at the expense of slower steering.Of course, all this is just my opinion. Your mileage may vary.

I happy in that it runs better then before. You get what you pay for, though. And I did not pay a huge amount for the work. The bike is my wifes street Guzzi. 37,000 miles and she rides it in all kinds of situations, from touring to parking lot racing( like autocross). It is easy to do work like that on a Guzzi. The heads and cylinders pop off so easy. No water cooling to deal with. It's cake. There are many opinions on how to set up your squish, but as stated before by some one else I think you just mill off enough of the head to get rid of the beval( you'll understand it when you see it). then set the piston height to be flush with the top of the cylinder by milling of the cylinder(I milled off the top of each cylinder). The head gasket will give you clearence between the piston and head. But you do need to be sure that you have piston to valve clearence by putting clay on the piston tops where the valve pockets are and spinning the motor over a couple of times. The squish and porting work helped with the pinging, but it will still ping if I run it lean (not really lean, a/f ratio13/1-13.5/1). It lilkes about 12/1-12.5/1. But it doesn't ping much and with gas prices what they are...

That's pretty much what I did as well. Had the local Guzzi shop do it for me while they were porting the heads. The whole time the kept telling me what I was doing woudn't work. Some people don't understand the difference between squish and compression.

(3 octane in the USA is not the same as in Austalia. I believe we use an average of RON and MON, and you just use one or the other(correct me if I'm wrong). As far as timing goes, you're assuming the Guzzi is capable of machining all thier bikes the same as far as things like sensors for the crank and/or cams. I don't have that kind of faith in Guzzi from what I've seen. Minor differences in the mounts for the sensors could and would make for noticable variences in timing from one bike to another. But that is just speculation on my part. I do know for sure that on my wifes v11, if the mixture is set for optimum power it pings, and if I richen it up a bit it stops. Your mileage may vary.

Pinging can be caused by mixture or timing. Unfortunatly the pc3 can only adjust mixture. If the issue is due to timing(as it is on my wifes v11), you can band-aide the situation by adjusting the mixture to be overly rich. Not the best solution, but it can work. If you could retard the timing slightly, that might help(and it can improve power as well). But that is not easy to do. On a final note, Improving squish is a good idea and it can help get rid of pinging, but it is a fine line to walk since most ways to improve squish also increase compression, which can add to the pinging issue. Usually the improvement in squish out weighs the increase in compression, but not always. Good luck. One way or another it can be done.

I believe there is a difference between pressure and flow. A thicker oil will build pressure quicker when cold but a thinner oil will flow to the bearings faster. In my opinion, the pressure build is not because the oil is getting to the bearings quicker, but rather because it is resisting going to the bearings.

And I thought you can download the software off the web site.

Maybe it's my location, but I've seen more RM's then green V11's. But still, Guzzi's are for ridin'.

Glad you found a work-around, and hopefully you're on you way to correcting the problem. But I don't understand how the neutral switch could be all the problem. The bike only needs to be in neutral to start if the side stand is down. Maybe there's more then one issue. Maybe the side stand switch or the relay is not working correctly. I'm just sayin'...

What are the symptoms? You can't just tease us like that.

I like how steady the A/F is, but in my experience 14.7:1 is optimum for low emissions(when coupled with a cat) and somewhere between 12 and 13 to 1 is where max power lives. And for reasons that are debatable air cooled motors like Guzzi's and older Ducati's make max power with air fuel ratios a bit richer then modern liquid cooled motors do(and seem to be happier as well).

This is so F'd up it's fun. Ilove that expression and wonder where it came from. Wasn't there a point to the thread? Isn't somebodies Guzzi in need of help?

Sorry for polluting the post. I've known many a professional mechanic who don't adjust valves to within .001". That may have something to do with the fact that most specs call for valves to be adjusted to within a range, not to a specific value. I suspect that would be infering that it's not that critical, that there's some margin for error. If you are going to adjust them to exactly a given value, you would be better off using a dial indicator as suggested rather then a feeler gauge in my opinion.

Your relays may not be the cause of the issue, but do not assume that because you replaced them recently they are fine. Brand new electrical components are always a possible source of trouble. And it sounds like your current issue is different then the original one. Whether it's a completely new problem or an evolution of the original is hard to say, but don't assume one way or the other.

Decreasing the current draw by switching to LED's speeds up the flash rate on mechanical blinkers. The flasher is probably bad. Easy fix.

All H-D's are 45 degree Vtwin's except the V-Rod bikes that have the new(for H-D) 60 degree Revolution engines. Have not ridden a V-Rod, but the 45 degree H-D's vibrate like crazy. That's why women love them. And for vertical twins, while most fired the cylinders 360 degrees apart, some old british twins fired the cylinders at the same time( nick-named Twingles ). And some jap twins used 180 degree cranks.

That may be because in a two stroke lean or rich doesn't just affect the cht, it also affects whether the engine has enough oil to lubricate it. But while I heard about the lean/rich temp thing before, I always heard that the temp curve on the rich side was much steaper then on the lean side(ie, a little rich was cooler then a little lean). But I'm no expert.

In relation to your engine failure, I have heard of issues with the use of the newest spec car oils in engines with bearings other then plain bearings. Supposedly the decreased friction properties of the oil don't get along with roller and ball bearings. How big an inpact this really has I don't know. But I have heard that it is a reason to avoid the new spec car(they use mainly plain bearings) oils in bikes(lots of roller and ball bearings, especially in european bikes). I would be curious what experts say.

One difference is air craft engines run steady state, no accellerating and decellerating all the time like a motorcycle. But I'm sure there is still some that applies. As far as lean burn tech, atleast some of it uses stratified charge technology. Honda is big on that.

Most of the "spun bearing" stories I've heard involve a plain bearing. If a plain bearing spins, among other things the hole that it's oil is pumped in thru no longer lines up so it loses it's oil pressure and fails. I'm sure any type of bearing can spin, and most if not all will have problems as a result. But plain bearings pretty much instantly fail when they spin.

Just remember, you asked. I've always heard that each had it's advantages. Plain bearings are cheap, quiet, and as long as oil pressure is high enough, low friction. Ball,roller, and needle bearing are low friction all the time(oil pressure be damned), handle higher loads(that's why they're used in twins and singles), and longer lasting. When I raced Ducati's with Gotham Racing in the 90's we blew up top ends, but never lost a bottom end. I'm told they use expensive Timkin bearings(a type of caged ball bearing I believe)

I wish I had some valuable insight on this, as it is one of the more entertaining threads I have seen on this site in a while. But sadly, my knowledge is not well versed enough to be of use to others on this subject. I know enough of bearings to have my own opinion, but not enough that I expect others to want to hear my opinion.

Maybe your forks are different then the ones on my wifes '01 V11. But increasing the damping in the initial part of the stroke acually smoothed out the ride. Before it just blew thru the stroke and slammed into the stiff part at the end. Now it is more controlled. Try putting a zip tie around your inner tube on one leg to measure fork travel. When I did that I found that even on a smooth road it was using most of the travel. While I don't think you should just blindly do what I(or anyone else) says, I do encourage you to experiment with your forks. I put mine back together with no springs and you could see what the damping was doing without any trouble. Good luck.

My experience was that when I blocked off one of the holes in the damper tube the ride quality improved. The forks no longer just blew thru the majority of travel only to slam into a sudden increase in resistence. I don't believe my solution was perfect, but it was an improvement in the action of the fork.