GuzziMoto

We have visited Colorado Springs twice so far, likely will be back this fall as we are passing through to Ouray and Moab. Not only is Pikes Peak awesome, so is the Garden of the Gods. Nice place to live I think.

The 8 valve motors also get fairly poor fuel mileage and do not really make a lot of power for their size. Mostly they seem to have a high amount of fuel consumed per horsepower made. Just not a very efficient motor. Combustion chamber design and cam specs likely to blame, but that is just a guess. If they had made the 8 valve motor back around 1990 it would have been a good motor design, minus the issue of the valve train destroying itself. But in todays day and age it does not stand out. As to the reasons it eats it valve train, the coating does not seem to be the root cause as other motors use those coatings and don't eat their valve trains. Also, it is possible that the "mayo in the oil" issue may play a part, but it seems unlikely as the failures became a near 100% certainty. More likely they got the spring rates wrong, as flat tappet cams require the correct spring rate, and since they are swapping to roller tappets without having to change the spring rate, it seems that the spring rate may be too stiff for happy flat tappets. You generally need stiffer springs for roller tappets. Anyway, if you like the 8 valve Griso motor and want to put it into a spine frame it would be tricky to do but not impossible. The main hurdle is the alternator is probably in the way of the frame. So you would need to address that.

The Daytona / Centauro motors are the ones with "high wear"? Are you sure? Pretty sure the 8 valve Griso motor design was so F'd up they had to retro-fit roller lifters as the valve train was trashing itself. It seems they did not get the original design right. Perhaps the roller version will last, we don't know yet. But I would not call the 8 valve motor a better designed motor. But for me, the main thing that puts the Daytona / Centauro motor ahead of the 8 valve motor is I prefer the feel, the raw character, of the old 4 valve motor. The new 8 valve motor is too boring for me.

Loeb is an amazing talent. When he was dominating WRC it still fun to watch as I felt like I was witnessing an era, something I will be able to remember many years from now. And I was right. It was an era. Watching the bikes is cool, but honestly it is some of the special cars that they have run there that really are the top draw.

You can fit a 4 valve per cylinder motor from a Daytona or Centauro (the Centauro would be the one to use, the Daytona is far too valuable), but you can't easily fit just the heads as you could with the V65. The drive for the valve train is too different compared to the V65 where the Lario used the same push rod set up. There are a fair number of cross parts, but often the parts are only close and not the same. Like while you may be able to fit a speedo drive from a different model the gear ratio might be off and thus the speedo would read wrong. Besides, there are more V11's out there than most other Guzzi's, I can't believe you would have less trouble finding parts for, say, a Centuaro or Daytona. I have considered putting a Centauro motor in my Griso, Not sure if / when I will be able to pull it off. But I am pulling the motor and trans as I have to replace the clutch. While it is that far apart it seems like a good time to do the swap. I was sold on the Griso when the first prototypes were shown. The original had the Centauro motor anyway. As I have a Daytona, I must say I find that motor to be more enjoyable than the CARC 2 valve motor. Maybe if I had an 8 valve Griso, but those had more problems with their design than the old 4 valve motor from the Daytona and Centauro. So in hindsight I am glad I don't have one of them. Anyway, back on track. Yes, there is a fair bit of parts swappability. But often what seems like the same part on two different Guzzi's is really almost the same part. Sometimes that can be good, like when I put a Cali transmission in my Daytona. Other times it is bad, like when the parts work but either not as well or not quite right.

Yeah, it is paved all the way to the top. The parking area is not paved as I recall, but the shop there at the top has really good plain hot doughnuts. I thought it was more of a spectacle before they paved it to the top, but that doesn't take away from the skill required to do what Chris or any of the other racers competing display. I briefly met Chris, he seems like a good guy. He does make a few mistakes, near as I can tell, during that run, but not nearly as many as I suspect I would make. That is a hard course to memorize. And they don't display turn markers the way the IOM TT does. The only signage for turns is the same sort of signage you and I would have as we drive up to the top as tourists. They may have even removed some of the tourist signage. I am not sure. I really did not like the camera panning the way it did, I would have enjoyed it more with the camera fixed. It could have been looking forward, it could have been looking back at Chris. But panning like that, especially panning as he was going into turns really took away how tight some of those switchbacks are. The combination of panning and the fish eye lense I did not care for. The sound of that twin was sweet. The speed, how quickly he hit 100, was cool. He has a little slide at the 7:40 mark that was scary. It was a little slide, but it happened where there was no run off, just down. You can tell how the little twin is loosing power as he gets near the top. But to be fair, the first time we went there we parked at the top, got out, and tried to run across the parking lot to the shop with the doughnuts. We could not run. We also ran out of power at that altitude, more than the KTM did.

I too have experienced tank swelling when using ethanol / gas. We have had it around here for a long time, more then 20 years, so it has become normal to me. The issues I have seen from it include tank swell, which is mainly a problem if you take the tank off and leave it off for a period of time. I have found that if I empty the tank and leave the cap open, however, it isn't a problem. But leaving the tank off with fuel in it for any length of time is a bad idea if the tank is plastic. I have run into it with both the wife's V11 and my Griso. The Griso tank fits down in between the frame rails. I left it off once with gas in it for a few weeks and when I went to put it back on it would not fit all the way back down between the frame rails. The wifes V11 has also had tank swell issues, so I coated that one on the inside with an epoxy. Before the epoxy it also developed blisters, but only under the harness that attaches the tank bag. Interesting. Oddly, we had two Buells with plastic tanks and I never noticed an issue with them. I have also had plastic tanked dirt bikes without issue. I also had a snow blower where they used some sort of plain rubber tubing for the fuel line when they built it. The ethanol gas ate that fuel line and turned it into something that looked and acted like taffy. It was funny. But to me, that is what happens when you don't use the right material for the job. If you try to use cheap rubber tubing for fuel line the fuel will eat it up. I still recall the thread we had about ethanol in gas and the idea that you can remove it by adding water to the fuel. At some point the ethanol will separate from the gas, then remove the water and the ethanol and you should have ethanol free gas. If I had more time I would love to test that. Start with ethanol free gas, add a specific amount of ethanol, then add a specific amount of water. After separating, see if the water and ethanol add up to the water / ethanol you removed from the gas. I am curious if you will actually end up with the right amount of water and ethanol in the end.Not saying you won't, just curious how it would fare in a real test. But I am so used to ethanol in my gas that I can't get worked up enough to put that much effort into it.

Sadly, my Griso is in pieces and is on its way to being in more pieces before it hopefully gets reassembled. It has a bad clutch. The wife's V11 needs a new battery and a set of tires. Her Monster apparently needs a new battery as well, went to start it this past weekend and when you turn the key nothing happened. I don't know if the tender killed it or if it died in spite of the tender. My Daytona also needs a new battery. But that is to be expected, the battery it had was a hand me down Odyssey battery and smaller then it should be to boot. My Lario is running great. Another Odyssey battery. But right now the bikes need to fight with the Jeep for time, attention, and money.

We have brands of fuel like that over here. They are really just Ethanol free fuel here, and come in a four stroke and 2 stroke version. The two stroke version has a couple different pre-mix ratios available. TruFuel is the main brand available around here, but others offer similar. I can't imaging using a fuel that expensive for anything. I have used it in my lawn equipment but that was not sustainable, too expensive. I also saw no advantage to it, other than convenience, but I did not do any scientific tests.

I tried to race a Bimota Tesi years ago. They brought it out after it failed to finish the Daytona 200. They did not seem to think about WHY it did not finish the Daytona 200. They just brought it out and said "Here, try this". It would not run for more then 1/2 a lap. Part of the problem turned out to be the carbon fiber fairing was shorting the battery. The battery would drain and the bike would die.

My wifes V11 runs stronger than my Griso. But her V11 does have more work in it. As mentioned, to make a dual plug head work right would / should require different ignition timing as it will take less time to burn the air / fuel mixture and develop pressure pushing down on the piston. We used to run dual plug conversions on our Ducati racebikes. We would run much less advance compared to stock.

I like Phil's plan. A second hand motor would probably be the cheapest, easiest, way to get it back on the road. But an EV motor is slower / less powerful. At the least I would look for a second hand V11 sport motor. Fixing the broken motor is a great opportunity to upgrade and make it even better. And while it will be more work, it should not be that expensive if you can do the work yourself. A second hand crank re-balanced (and maybe lightened) for the new lighter rods. Check the cam for signs of wear / damage if it was run without oil pressure.

That is a cool thing to do. Glad you got to do it. That looks like a fun track to go around, not so much a good race track but a good track day kind of track. How was the surface? It looked terrible on TV. My wife has done that around Indy (the road course), once on her V11 and once at the wheel of our smart car (don't laugh, please....). I did it once at Indy at the wheel of the same smart car, but I have been around a few race tracks in anger, so I gave my shot at Indy on a bike to my friend. He had fun.

You could always just safety wire that nut, or a nicer nut, on. I think it is funny that most other bikes I have owned / ridden used a mechanical lock of some sort, either a cotter pin or some such, to secure the axle nuts. The Guzzi seems to be one of the few that doesn't think your axle staying secured is that important. You can safety wire it, just remember to safety wire both ends. The nut and the axle itself.

Replicating the white face Veglia, and adding every option available from Speedhut, added to the cost. Having them build faces similar to the black face ITI is likely more straight forward (read: cheaper). There is still the matter of fitting and mounting the Speedhut (not exactly "plug&play") and whether they can stand the weather. What kind of sensor did you use to drive the Speedo, I'm still in the fog on how I transfer a mechanical cable drive to an electronic speedo? The adapeters mentioned either don't have the right thread, or can't be use because of space issues. Is yours the GPS solution? Also any pic from the mounting and fitting? Thanks a bunch. p There are companies who sell a hall effect sensor that goes on the speedo drive output at the transmission. That signal can then be used to drive the speedo. Or there is a sensor you can fit at one of the wheels that picks up a signal as the wheel spins and use that to drive the speedo. That is what I did on my Daytona. But the GPS option that Doc went with is probably the best option, it certainly is the easiest.

How could it be a cable issue if the speedo needle still works? More likely an internal failure of the odo drive, tapping the instrument free'd up/disconnected the speedo from the odo. Ciao "Symptoms were slowing turn over on the dial and dancing speedometer needle." Just trying to go by what he said.

I agree, but you should not be fixing your Guzzi by hitting it. That tends to make me think you have an issue with the speedo drive. Perhaps the cable. Start by making sure the cable is tight on both ends, down at the trans and where it goes into the speedo.

Road Atlanta went from being one of my favorite tracks to being a track I don't have any desire to go back to. They really screwed that track up. I am just glad I got to race on it before they F'd it up.

Well, I know that ain't no Goose..... But it sounds cool.

I understand the physics of it, although I don't have a physics book to dig out. Besides, books are for "old" people..... Nowadays we just google something. Yes, a bicycle has less mass in its wheels. But it also has less mass over all. I am not sure I get your point.

Who hangs off on the street? I never got that. I hope the guy felt bad about taking the other guy out.

I think the difference is bicycles often spend more time BELOW the point where counter steering takes over from direct steering as the best way to steer where as motorcycles spend considerably more time above that point, But both motorcycles and bicycles have the same steering characteristics. At lower speeds they both direct steer well. As speed increases, counter steering becomes a better way to steer.

It's a fine line. Too much negative pressure and you could have oil going where you don't want it or not going where you need it. There are two questions here, really. One is how much negative pressure would yield the maximum benefit? The answer there is probably more negative pressure than you would think. On our old air cooled two valve Ducati 750 racebikes we would run a reed valve on the crank case breather to create a small amount of negative pressure in the crank cases. But other engines go much further, like the new Ducati motor that Phil mentions. Even back in the day there were performance tuners creating negative pressure in the cases by things like vacuum pumps, using either intake vacuum or exhaust velocity to create much larger amounts of negative pressure in the crank cases. There was one classic story of a NASCAR tuner who was testing such a system, it was working great until the driver slammed the throttle closed at high rpm. The sudden spike of negative pressure / vacuum in the crank cases sucked the oil pan in around the crank. How much of that is true, how much is exaggeration I don't know as I was not there. But the main point is negative pressure in the crank cases is a good thing. There is a point where too much is too much. But that point is probably a lot higher than you think. The other question is how much negative pressure can you run in a V11 motor? Sadly, my experience is that the V11 does not like much, if any, negative pressure in the crank cases as it messes with the oiling and breathing systems. But with some work it is possible that those hurdles could be over come. And if you manage that you should see an increase in power and possibly in reliability / longevity.

You actually don’t want negative pressure because of that. Ideally you shoot for neutral pressure. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Actually, there are reasons you want negative pressure in the crank cases. Not a lot, but negative pressure none the less. There is actual horsepower to be had there. But that is not very feasible with a V11, and I am not sure it is worth the effort. On a big V8 it can be a fairly significant amount of horsepower. But on a V11 I doubt you would be able to feel the difference. Running slightly negative pressure in the crankcases improves ring sealing and reduces pumping losses.

I did once try a valve in the breather of my Daytona (same basic system) and it caused issues with the return line. I put the one way valve on the line from the crank case to the spine. That dropped the pressure in the cases which caused air to be pulled down the return line, aerating the oil in the cases like a fish tank bubbler. Then I tried moving the one way valve to the atmospheric vent for the spine. That resulted in oil being sucked up from the sump in the return line. I did try it without a return line, and it worked. But I thought the return line was more important than the negative pressure. So I re-installed the return line. At that point I gave up on the one way valve and creating a negative pressure in the cases. Perhaps it is do-able, but I got tired of trying. I decided it was more trouble than it was worth.