GuzziMoto

Those Norton Rotary racers are some of the coolest racebikes ever made. The sound, the spectacle of them, is amazing. That is a more interesting Norton to me. The guy behind them made a few new versions, track only, a couple years ago as I recall.

Personally I like the new / old Commando. I think the Kenny Dreer version was better, but this latest version seems all right. Funny, there is a tie in with this thread; Because I believe ever since the Kenny Dreer remake it has been a 270 degree crank to reduce vibration at the displacement and rpms they are running.

A good take on the new rules by someone you have heard of (although I would have thought for sure you would have heard of me....) https://www.crash.net/motogp/news/1048024/1/stoner-only-engineers-benefit-most-2027-motogp-rules Stoner responded: “The ONLY improvement to the current rules is the banning of the ride height and Holeshot device. Nothing else will benefit this sport for the future, only the engineers will get the benefits."

The aero changes are fairly small. "The maximum permitted width of the high portion of the front fairing Aero Body will reduce from 600mm to 550mm, the maximum rear end height will reduce from 1250mm to 1150mm, the foremost point of the front fairing (nose) will be moved back by 50mm, and the rearward taper of the front fairing aero appendices will also narrow.". So, a reduction in width from 600mm to 550 mm (less then 10% reduction in width) as well as moving the front allowable part of the nose back 50mm and reducing the max height of the tail section 100mm (less then a 10% reduction in height of the tail section). Not very big aero changes. I would rather see serious reductions in aero. You will never make it go away, once that genie is out of the bottle it doesn't go back. But I would love to see all wings and appendages banned. Restrict aero to the surface of the fairing only. Eliminate these add on aero parts. They will still chase aero, but make it a much smaller part of MotoGP. But they aren't listening to the fans. Not many fans seem to like aero, it makes the racing less exciting and most people seem to find the aero look ugly. But the teams like it because there is speed there. Some teams like it more then others, because some teams are better at it. But aside from the negative impact on the racing and looks, aero is expensive. What happened to all that talk of making MotoGP affordable?

The reduction in engine capacity should change the aerodynamic needs, but it won't make them go away. It will make the bikes harder to ride. It likely won't reduce speeds anymore then it did last time they tried smaller engine capacity. As to safety, the smaller engine capacity bikes were arguably less safe as they meant racers had to carry more speed through the corners as the bikes lacked the torque of the larger engine displacement. That tends to lead to more highsides. I am sad that they aren't banning aero, but okay with banning the ride height devices. But the reduction of engine capacity seems misguided, like they don't remember history. The worst thing about all this is we are at a place in time where everyone is so close, and a rules change like this will likely spread the field out as some teams / manufacturers will get it more right then others will.

Uh, is it too late to say "set them back to the same depths they were at before you removed the rear swing arm?

Are you sure those tires are radial tires? Pretty sure they aren't. Kenda does make a radial tire, the KM1. And it does come in the right sizes for a V11 Sport. Neither of those tires are the right size for a V11 Sport. And not being radials will probably mean less miles of use and not sure how they would handle on a bike made for radial tires.

No idea. He hasn't been around in three weeks, from what I see. I asked him a question about his bike on the 11th. He was last here on the 12th so I assume he saw my question. But he may have also seen the debate pick up about the octane and bailed. Or maybe he is just busy..... I certainly hope he is on the path towards a happy Guzzi.

From the Odyssey website; "the alternator should provide between 14.2 and 14.5 volts at the battery terminals." So you are just above their target range and below the maximum 15 volts they warn not to exceed. Another number for the Odyssey battery to know is voltage when fully charged. They say the Odyssey battery will read 12.84 volts when fully charged at 77 degrees F after sitting for at least 6 hours to settle out after charging. That is slightly higher then some other batteries voltage when fully charged. Finally, the Sparker battery that came stock in many, if not all, V11 Sports was for all intent and purpose an Odyssey battery by a different name. So, if there is any concern that the stock charging system will work with the Odyssey battery, well, I would say it seems the factory thought it would.

The odyssey battery is fine up to 15 volts according to the people that make it. Here in the states you can't turn the headlight off. And the V11 Sport stock R/R uses the headlight circuit for its battery voltage reference as I recall. If you turn the headlight off it would stop charging.

The voltage at idle is a little low in my opinion, but that it goes up to 14.6 volts at 3k rpm says the reg/rectifier is doing its job. The low voltage at idle would more likely be down to a lack of voltage output in the alternator. That could be from a low idle or a reflection of the generally weak design of the Italian charging system. It could also be an issue with the battery itself, either being weak or needing some conditioning, causing the battery to not be able to hold the charge it was getting when the rpms were up. But honestly, I would not worry about it as long as it is working that well.

The NINJA H2®R ABS is $58,100 and is sold for offroad (racetrack) use only here. The Ninja H2 SX is only $28,000 and it is fully street legal. Both are supercharged,

No doubt some motorcycle prices are up there. But a couple years ago the wife and I bought two brand new motorcycles for less then $15k. And they weren't low budget off brand bikes, they were Husqvarna's. If we wanted cheaper bikes in that range there are a few available from Japanese manufacturers that would have probably been under $10k or $12k for the pair. While some models are amazingly expensive, there is also a large number of smaller bikes on the market for very reasonable prices. Back in the 90's and 2000's if you wanted a smaller bike you could typically only find a few options that were all oriented towards beginners. Now you can buy really nice sub 500cc bikes for reasonable prices. So, I think we are in a great time for motorcycles.

Lesson learned, I hope. Never use worm gear clamps on the high pressure side of fuel injection. Hope once that is sorted things go smooth.

Dude, some of us haven't seen that race yet. Thanks.....

By the "Lead Issue' do you mean the odd behavior you got when unplugging one sparkplug lead and then the other? I am not sure what that test was meant to show. I would have expected it to run on either cylinder, although poorly. It does seem to indicate that one cylinder runs worse then the other as one cylinder kept running with the other one off while the other one did not. I have not done that sort of test on purpose, but I have accidentally made a twin run on just one cylinder. I did not learn anything from that, however. With your fuel mileage as poor as it is I would expect you can smell fuel, it is using near twice as much fuel to run as it should. Honestly, that could be a real problem as that much fuel going through the motor could wash oil off the cylinder walls.

Your right, it is specifically the brake light function of the tail light that doesn't work when that relay is not relaying. Thanks for the correction. I was following the wife through Pennsyltuckey and was impressed that she was never hitting the brakes. Turns out her relay was not relaying. It is possible you have an R/R issue, but I suggest you make sure it is not one of the more common issues that plague the V11 Sport first before shelling out the coins for a new R/R.

New quality relays is always a good idea. Also, make sure the bases where they plug into are clean and tight. A quality relay with a bad connect doesn't work any better then a cheap relay with a good connection. Back when we would travel on motorcycles we would always carry a spare set of relays for the wife's V11. We only needed them a couple times, but when you need them you need them, and you aren't going to find them in the middle of Pennsyltucky. A classic sign that the relay was not working was also the lack of a tail light as I recall. We did run into situations were the relay would stick and only work some of the time. The clues that the relay was not working were a weak headlight (because the real headlight would not work, only the running light worked), the tach would act up, and the taillight would not work.

Yeah, I try to buy quality whenever possible. I would rather only buy it once.

Before you do that, make sure the headlight is working. In the headlight there are two bulbs, one standard low beam / high beam headlight bulb and one running light bulb. It is easy to mistake the running light bulb being on for the headlight working. If the headlight bulb isn't working the regulator won't properly charge the battery. Because it uses the voltage on the headlight circuit after the headlight bulb to measure battery voltage. The bulb can be burnt out or the circuit might be off (blown fuse or faulty relay). You may need a new regulator, but make sure before going that way.

To be fair, even if Marc had not fallen down it seems like he wasn't going to win anyway. He may or may not have finished ahead of Acosta, but Mav was on a roll and was faster then everyone, including Marc. Marc never looked comfortable, and seemed to be looking for a place to crash. And he found one. He was running near the front, but he never looked like he was in the zone. Mav was in the zone, and even some bumping and banging on lap one wasn't going to deny him.

Mav has a long history of being hot and cold. I don't think anybody thought he could never win a race on the Ape. But I think most would doubt he can be consistently fast over an entire season. I am enjoying his success while it lasts, though.

23 miles per gallon would be very bad fuel mileage. You should be getting near twice that. I would start with a basic tune up........

That was probably the best racing ever at COTA.

Without getting off into the weeds about octane and the pro's / con's of running 100 octane race fuel in a bike not made for it, I would agree with docc that a good place to start when you are having running issues is the Decent Tune Up that he linked to. Has it always done this or is this new, @Daveguzzi1 ?