GuzziMoto

I don't know about all of the V11's, but I know the wife's '00 V11 has cartridge forks. It is not a completely sealed cartridge, it has bleed holes that allow the oil to bypass the piston that moves up and down inside the cartridge. But technically it is a cartridge fork. As mentioned before, if you block off one of the bleed holes on the cartridge body and force more oil to go through the piston valving you can get better control over the suspension movement. The linkage for the rear drive box is supposed to separate the torque of the rear gears and it's rotational effect from the suspension movement. So getting hard on the gas doesn't make the rear suspension try to extend. But it doesn't mean the rear suspension works perfectly. The shock can still have issues, and the massive weight of the rear drive box hanging on the end of the swing arm also adds it issues. A normal chain drive set up has much less weight on the far end of the swing arm, making life for other shocks much easier. It has been a very long time since I had a set of V11 forks open. But I find that if you take it apart it is easy to see how it works. From there you can figure out how to make them better. That is what I did many years ago. Setting sag should always be step one in setting up suspension. Make sure your race sag (my term for the sag with the rider on board) is right. Then check the free sag (my term for how much the bike sags under its own weight without the rider on board) is where it should be. Usually free sag should be around 10 - 15 percent of total travel when race sag is set to 30 - 40 percent of total travel. If free sag is too much that means your springs are too stiff, where as too little free sag means your springs are too soft.

I have not tried the K&N filter, but being too tall would be my main concern. There are so many good quality filters out there I don't know why you would pick K&N. FYI, I have had issues with K&N oil filters rusting away, even to the point that the filter housing leaked. The rust was centered around the fake nut that is welded to the end of the housing. I reported the issue to K&N, including pictures. They sent me a new filter to replace the bad filter (nice of them). But my main concern was the issue with the filter design. While I have no issues with the company as a whole, I am not likely to use their oil filters again. But to be fair, since the V11 oil filter lives inside the sump and would be covered in oil both inside and out it is likely that it isn't going to have rust issues when used on a V11. But the big question would be whether or not the filter fits under the manhole cover on the bottom of the sump. I tend to use either NAPA Gold or WIX filters.They are fine for a V11. Other brands out there are also fine.

That is a sweet looking hybrid. What a combination. Nicely done. Of course, I am partial to the Greenies.....

That is easy to say until you hear them talking about how their brakes were "gone" from about halfway through the race and the had to run the last half just downshifting to slow down. No worries, I have great respect for those that do. But I will stick to racebikes with good brakes.

Well, we drive it to and from work around 200 miles, mostly on interstates, on a single charge with some left over. If we take a nicer, non-interstate intensive route th erange goes up as running 70 - 80 mph on the interstate drains the battery faster than going the same distance at 55 mph. It also seems to loose a little range when we head west deeper into the mountains vs heading east from where we are like to work. Our level 2 charger (240 volt) charges it in 8 - 10 hours. The dash is interesting. It includes some sort of light up accent stripe. Very nice looking to me. It has heated leather seats and steering wheel. That actually helps the range as heating the seats takes less energy than heating the whole cabin.

Well, so far so good. My younger brother bought one like a year or so ago. He has been happy with his, but he is a more urban type person. He lives something like 8 miles from where he works. So he drives it for days without needing to charge it. For us, one trip to and from work is most of what it can do on a charge. So we charge it more often, and we use a level 2 charger while he just uses the 120 volt level 1 charger. We went skiing this past weekend for a few hours. The place we go is only around 100 miles west of us, so I thought it would be easy there and back on a charge. But the combination of highway driving out and the mountain terrain meant by time we got there we had used over half the charge. Not good. But we took back roads coming back, roads we would ride motorcycles on in warmer weather, and the lower speed pace stretched out the range a huge amount. We stopped for a late lunch about 20 minutes from home, with what might have been enough charge to make it. But there was a fast charger there so we charged up while eating. Next time we take the EV to ski we will likely avoid the highways most of the way to stretch the range. Live and learn. And honestly, I think GM has some of the best tech of the American three. And that hurts me to say. I am an old school Plymouth guy, Mopar all the way. Dodge too. But right now Plymouth is gone and Dodge is way behind in tech. Ford is perhaps better, but I don't think they have near the tech that GM does. The new C8 Vette is amazing. GM has great high performance tech as well as great economy tech.

Our newest car is the opposite of sexy. A 2020 Chevy Bolt (aka, Opel Ampera-e). It helps balance the carbon footprint of the Jeep Wrangler four door with 37" tires and a coilover 4" lift. Our drive to work is just under 200 miles round trip. I never thought I would own an electric car. It seems wrong. But they finally got the range up to where it is feasible for us, being able to drive to and from work on a single charge without worrying. Not as cool as the Riviera, but it can cover our commute with $3.50 worth of electricity. Even our Smart car used $12.50 worth of gas to make the same trip.

The stock airbox will flow better than two small pods at most rpms, and as such will make a better spread of power. But the individual pods do look cool. The loss of performance when switching to pods isn't huge, and it has been done by some. But it is a loss of performance. If you go with pods, do everything you can to retain the rubber velocity stacks that serve as intake runners between the airbox and the throttlebodies. My Daytona has a really cool set of machined aluminum velocity stacks that were made to convert to pods, and I was able to get them to work pretty well. But if I could fit the airbox back on that bike I would. But it is pretty far from stock and the stock airbox would not fit with the V11 rear subframe and seat.

Some V11's came with handle bars like that. But not the red frame greenies (which are the best V11's). However, you can either swap the top triple clamp for one from a V11 that did have the handle bars, or you can simply drill the holes in the top triple clamp and mount the handle bars using either stock bar risers or aftermarket bar risers. The bosses to drill for handle bars are typically there, just not drilled. I drilled the top triple clamp on the wife's red framed silver V11, and mounted the stock risers from a V11 Ballabio. I believe I even used the Billabio bars.

The seller is ExtremeTradingLTD. It makes me think this is a shady deal. I would imagine they imported it from Japan to escape its past. As mentioned, it clearly isn't an original Scura. The question is, why? Is it just the wrong gas tank? Or is there more... I wonder what the VIN says. I wonder if it is a salvage / crashed bike. That is crazy money in my opinion. V11's are not common, but there aren't a lot of people looking to but them either. Being uncommon alone doesn't make it valuable. It also needs people who want to buy one. Either way, I hope it gets a good owner that shows up here.

Part of the reason is the various versions of the forks have different adjuster set ups. And the fork caps have to accommodate the adjusters.

I have the same attitude about wrenching, in most cases I figure I could do just as shitty a job as someone I would pay, cheaper. And maybe even better. Professional mechanics (and charlatans) rarely have the same level of concern for my things as I do. I might do the job slower, or even two or three times to make sure I got it right. They usually just want to get it out their door with the least effort required. If you find a professional mechanic that cares about your things as much as you do, or even close, that is a rare thing and I would suggest taking as much to them as you can. Guys like Pete Roper are not the norm, sadly. And I clearly am not as good as he is. But usually I am good enough.

The extenders do not affect the springs or anything else inside the forks. Not even the air volume inside the fork is affected. They are basically a fork cap with an extra high lip. The adjuster is in the same place, which due to the extended lip, down inside the extended lip. And they do not make universal fork extensions. A fork extension for one Showa fork isn't likely to fit other model Showa forks. They are model specific. Could one for a GSXR fit a Griso? Sure. But it is more likely not. I have a set, as mentioned, if you want to see if it would fit what you are doing. I even have a spare set of GSXR forks, along with the set on the Aprilia and the set on the Daytona. I don't remember the details on the spare set, but if they would work for you you can have them.

Some additional info going off memory (and as I get older, that is less and less reliable). Some model year GSXR's have issues with too much rake / not enough trail. So they make fork extensions for some model years that can help make them fit a larger motorcycle like a Guzzi better. The fork extensions basically add length to the top of the fork leg as an extra tall fork cap. But the forks tend to change every couple years, so a fork extension kit from one model often will only fit those one or two years. And some years don't offer the extensions as there isn't enough demand. When I bought a set for my Aprilia RXV roadracer project I made sure to get a set of GSXR forks that you could buy fork extensions for. For the Daytona I just went with a model year that offered longer forks stock. Attached is a chart that list more specs than just fork leg diameter. It also lists lengths. If you can't read it, I have a higher res copy just let me know.

I find that soapy water like Windex can be good for that. It is a lubricant when wet, helping the hose slide onto the fitting with less effort. But when it dries it is no longer slippery. In some cases, depending on the brand, it can even be a little tacky once dry.

Here is a site with specs on a large variety of GSXR forks. They have different lengths (I wanted as long as possible as the average Guzzi forks are longer than the average GSXR forks). https://www.svrider.com/forum/showthread.php?t=135430 I also went with the full fork swap as it seemed easier. I am not sure if it is possible to find GSXR fork legs that will fit directly into the Guzzi triple clamps. But if you do, then you have to figure out how you are going to fit a front wheel. Swapping the entire fork set and wheel made for a simple conversion. The only thing I had to figure out beyond which forks to use was how to adapt the GSXR steering stem to the Guzzi headstock. And all that took was finding out that DRZ400 steering bearings had the right combination of inside and outside diameters.

Not unless your speedo is wildly optimistic. 240 kph is 149 mph. Even downhill a stock or near stock V11 isn't going to go that fast. I could see 135 on a good day (a REALLY good day). A V11 is quick more than fast. It will accelerate really well for a 500 lb motorcycle with only two cylinders. But it lacks the raw power and aerodynamics to be able to pull 150 mph. But it is good to dream.

As a point, that is the crankcase vent. The air and oil mist it is venting go up into the frame, where the oil separates out and is returned to the sump. It is not a high pressure hose, but sadly the stock hose they used doesn't seem to hold up over time. You can replace it with another factory pre-bent hose, or you could just get some higher quality oil resistant hose and connect it to the back of the motor and the underside of the frame. The pre-bent factory hose is way easier, but it is such a cheap quality hose the factory uses.

Oh look, a bot.....

Pressure is typically measured relative to something. The nipple being open to atmo means that the fuel pressure it maintains is relative to atmospheric pressure. A cool example of this is; I have a cool liquid filled tire pressure gauge. I mainly use it for the Jeep. When we travel for our Jeep trips we often end up at a much higher altitude. If you don't "burp" the gauge it will read noticeably wrong. As I recall it reads low when you are at a much higher elevation if you don't burp it to relieve the excess pressure inside the gauge. Most gauges are vented to the atmosphere, but a liquid filled gauge typically has a rubber plug that keeps the liquid in. If atmospheric pressure has dramatically changed, like if you go from 500 ft above sea level to 5 or 6 thousand feet above sea level or more, you need to pull the plug enough to let the pressure in the gauge equalize with the pressure outside the gauge. The have been attempts to connect that nipple to the intake manifolds (to the vacuum port(s) there), but while that idea might sound good on paper it never seemed to work well in practice.

Between the wife and I we have four Guzzi's, but they are all different. The first was the wife's red frame V11. Then I bought the first Griso in Maryland. Next I bought a '93 Daytona from one of my best friends. It was the first Guzzi I ever rode, having went with him to buy it. I told him right then and there if he ever decides to sell it I want to buy it. Finally, we bought an '87 Lario small block. All four are different, and all are enjoyable in their own ways. I don't think it is silly to have more than one of the (basically) same bike. But I don't have the money, time, and garage space for that. The only way it makes sense for me is when they are so different. If I had more money, time, and garage space, I would not mind. But I don't.

They do come apart, at least partially. I would take it as far apart as you can get it, making sure to remove all rubber and plastic bits. Then soak it in carb cleaner or other such solvent. If you have access to a sonic parts cleaner (some use these for carb cleaning) that would be even better. If it is the manual petcock it should be salvageable. They are pretty simple devices.

Somewhere in this forum I wrote something up about how the early forks have basically zero compression dampening. I also talked about how, if you block off one of the two large bleed bypass ports in the cartridge tube, you can force the oil to go through the piston and valve stack and end up not only with dampening but have an adjuster that does something beyond the last inch of travel. The early forks have two large bypass ports that allow so much oil through them that the oil only needs to go through the piston and valving after the piston is past at least one of the two ports. And that doesn't happen until you are something like 3/4 the way through the suspension travel. Changing the oil won't help much unless you resolve that issue in my opinion. New springs are good, but we found that once we actually got the forks to have compression dampening we were OK with stock springs. At your weight, you may want stiffer springs, but I would address the utter lack of compression dampening first. From memory, I was working on the forks and happened to put the forks together without the springs installed. That made it easy to see what is going on. No matter what I did with the compression adjuster the compression leg had zero resistance to being compressed. I looked at it closer and saw the two large bypass ports and figured out that I could block one of them off and that would force at least SOME of the fork oil to go through the valving in the piston. The way it was stock it only really forced the fork oil through the valving after the piston was past at least one of the two bypass holes. So really, it was more like an adjustable hydraulic bumpstop.

The upper triple bolts aren't as crucial as the lower triple bolts. But both should be tightened the correct amount. The reason is over tightening them can distort the outer fork tubes. That would be a potentially bigger issue for the lower triple clamp pinch bolts, but both should be correctly tightened. Lacking a published spec, I would probably tighten them to around 20 ft/lbs at the most. If you are worried, put a little loc-tight (blue) on them.

Pete and Todd do not get along anymore. I assume it hit the fan between them. That said, I also have a bike using a map from Todd ('07 Griso 1100) and it runs well. It isn't for sale, either. I like Pete, and respect his knowledge. But I also deal with Todd and I have not yet had a bad experience with Todd. I don't agree with everything Todd says or does, but the same could be said about Pete. But, in the end, everyone has to make their decisions based on their experiences. If you are using GuzziDiag, as Pete mentioned, you should be able to find a map that will work well. There is a fairly large community of people using that software. If you aren't the sort to do that sort of thing yourself (like me) you can pay someone like Todd to do it for you. I did that with the Griso (paid Todd) and I did that with the V11 (found a local DynoJet / PowerCommander guy, he is long gone). For me, I deal with technology at work, and so when I get home I really don't want to get into something like GuzziDiag. Maybe one day I will have to bite the bullet, but for now all my Guzzi's (except the Lario) have been flashed or tuned and run great. The Lario runs pretty well, but it could use better jetting or even better carbs. I just don't think I need to worry about it on a vintage bike like that. Perfecting that bikes tuning would only encourage me to ride it harder and then it would probably blow up....