Lucky Phil

Thanks Kevin, I'll go with .2. I managed to juggle shims around as they are all a little different and got 2 rockers in tolerance but 2 are nowhere near. It seems the inconsistency is in the rocker length not the carrier Ciao

Do you mean that because technically the V11 pictured here is below sea level, its like a boat anchor docc Ciao

Thanks for your input Pete, we are all in furious agreement then I've ordered some custom shims which I should have next week. Ciao

Thanks Chuck, I tend to agree, it certainly feels more correct and wouldn't be as noisy either I don't think. I just gave Brad Black a call and he was of the same mind so that's 3 to zip so I'll go with that. Brad also gave me the number of a local business that makes shims to order which is also a big help. I'll submit and order for a quote from them and see what the damage is. None of my Ducati gearbox shims are quite right unfortunately, nor are my stash of general shims. Ciao

A question for those that have been inside the Daytona engine. Rocker arm side clearances. The original Daytona manual advises 0.2mm clearance with no image support which feels about right. However checking the later Centauro/Daytona manual the text is the same but the image seems to show 0.2mm clearance at each end giving a total clearance of 0.4mm. Now the shims come in 1.0 and 1.2mm thicknesses and achieving the 0.2mm overall total is close to impossible without making some shims myself. Anyone ever experienced the end float on these? I didnt note the clearances when I pulled the engine down all those years ago and 0.2 seems to "feel"' good while 0.4 "feels"a bit loose. Not sure if the manual is saying you measure 0.2 at each end or you can measure either end. Why wouldnt they just give you a total. Ciao

They got it right in the end though didn't they Pete? I like the Griso roller lifters better than the V10 flat tappet design. You could convert the V10 engine to roller lifters, it wouldn't be outrageously difficult. I looked at it with that old Griso lifter you sent me and then the images you did for the roller conversion. A couple of tricky bits but nothing that someone like Chuck with his machinery and engineering talent couldn't do. One thing though, none of them look better than the V10 high cam engine. Its a pretty sexy looking thing. Ciao

Component rich:) Ciao

L/H head ready to fit. One for the detail people and if it ever arises for those getting inside a 4 valver. Different spring retainers and although not really apparent in the image fractionally different keepers. The black retainers were from a pair of heads I bought from Paul Minnaert and are slightly different in dimension to the silver ones from my original engine. The keepers are also a slightly blacker tone and have slightly different dimensions. It may be just different time and suppliers but I kept the black keepers with the black retainers and likewise. Using the black ones gave less spring pre-load and would have required shimming the valve springs. The black keepers with the silver retainers also didnt produce a solid feel when installed without the springs as there was a slight rocking. Fine with like ones.I used the silver ones in the end. New rockers pins and adjusters ready to fit after the head go on. Ciao

Hi Kevin, I have 3 different sets of heads and and 2 sets of valve gear plus brand new and second hand inlet cams and a couple of used exhaust cams. Unfortunately I dont have knowledge of the mileage traveled by these engines so its hard for me to draw a conclusion about wear rates. I had never seen so much guide wear as the original set of heads I have either. One exhaust cam is scuffed a little and the other has minor wear and one set of used lifters I have seem usable and one set trashed. In general the cams seem to survive better than the lifters. Both are chilled cast iron material I believe. Having said that I think in general the valve guide wear and lifter wear rates could be better. You read about some owners that have trashed lifters at 20,000 klms and others that are still going at 100,000. The guide wear is down to the valves I believe mainly. If you use plasma nitrided micro polished valves then the guide wear will be ok although I did investigate the rocker geometry a few years ago and wasn't too impressed. Hard to correct that though. I was toying with the idea of roller lifters and cams like a later Grisso motor with the mini pushrods and roller tips on the rockers as well but then you would need to have shim adjustment of the clearances and it got too hard. In the end I admitted to myself that my engine isn't going to be doing a lot of miles and I already had a set of new std valves so thats what I'm using. If I had to buy new valves I'd go with the afore mentioned ones for sure and the guide wear will be largely eliminated. The other thing I was considering was drilling a lube hole in each cam faces on the opening ramp to put the oil directly onto the cam lobe face to help with the lifter wear. I'm going to put together a nice set of std heads and down the track I might go all out on a second set with all or some of my ideas. Oil pressure? well in my view 43 psi is probably enough in the grand scheme of things for a road engine. By that I mean that it shouldn't cause a failure. Heads dont need as much oil supply as you might think and many engines over the years have required oil feed to the heads be restricted for racing. Honda RC30's are an example of an engine that put too much oil into the heads at the expense of the crank in the early days. That and tight rod clearances. Interestingly I and Chuck in his aero engine are and were having difficulty with the oil pressure relief valve cracking too early. My spring seems to have sagged somewhat and I have a new one on the way. When I receive it I'll let everyone know whether or not that's the issue. The Daytona engine has the biggest oil pump Guzzi fitted to the original type big blocks as well and a taller drive ration. Guzziology did a lot of investigation into all the big block oil pressures, worth a read. The OPR valve could be something to look at in your engine as its easyish to remove. Watch this space to see what I find with the spring and preload and lapping of the valve. Its where the oil supply to the head on the V10 is directed that's probably of more concern to me and could use improving. I think its important with this engine as I mentioned previously that the cam well that the lobes sit in is filled with oil before you attempt to start a fresh engine and the lobes are well lubricated with a cam assembly lube. Ciao

Nice story to this one from the great Ian Moss. How do you guys rate it?

So today I looked at the cams and lifters again. I have a couple of used r/h cams, one I believe any normal person would use again without a second thought and one that any decent engineer would not. Which isnt to say I'm thrilled to use the acceptable one but thats the life of the pedantic. I checked the new lifters for correct finish and found them all good. The V10 engine has a reputation for being hard on lifters and valve guides so I'm paying particular attention to this area hence the preoccupation with such matters as lifter and cam profile.It doesnt help that I dont know the actual mileage of the engine originally and I also have parts from another engine of unknown mileage. No one has a definitive answer to this issue so everything needs to be examined. The cam lobes on this engine are lubricated via a small 1mm dia hole in the camshaft between the lobes. The cam itself is housed in what could be best described as a bathtub arrangement. Oil is fed from a main head gallery into the center of the camshaft and it then squirts out of the lube hole and keeps the bathtub filled which the lobes dip into on each rotation and it also squirts a bit of oil into the general head area. Its not a system I'm totally in love with as I'd much prefer to have the oil distributed directly to the opening ramps of each lobe, but it is what it is. Interestingly on my unusable r/h cam I found the small 1mm oil feed hole almost totally blocked so that explains the wear I guess. Whats really important with this engine is to make sure you have plenty of cam lube on the lobes before its first start AND the bathtub the cams sit in is filled with oil. I'm wondering if a lot of the cam and lifter issues stem from poor attention to these areas at the factory as you can toast a lifter and lobe in the first 30 seconds of operation if you haven't prepared. Lifter faces all good. radias is something like 76 feet but they all measured up at 0.06mm across the face ctr to edge. Here's the cam lube hole that was almost totally blocked. Here's what was blocking it. One of the 2 pieces on the left is what I found. They were some form of organic material and I had no idea from where but in one of those crazy moments where the universe provides you with an answer from, well somewhere, I found the source. If only the universe stepped up for something really meaningful. Not more than 5 minutes after finding the partially blocked oil feed hole ( partially blocked as in a 1mm drill needed to be pushed with force to clear it although a bright torch shined in the hole still showed a little light in the main cam gallery) I was looking at the main head gallery where the blanking plug is fitted and at the inside end of the threads I found stuck there the piece of the material shown on the right of the pieces that blocked the hole. its the thread sealant the factory used on the oil gallery blanking plug. It looks a little less translucent in the photo because it thicker in section but its the same stuff. My wife often wonders why I'm awake thinking at 3am. Ciao

I experimented with a wheel guard attached with clamps by that method 5 years ago or so but for me it looked a little too busy and inelegant. When I can summon up the motivation I'll weld some tabs to the swing arm for the guard I think. Ciao

I suspect the bubbles are water that leaches all the way through the tank material but I honestly dont know definitively. Why dont you prick a bubble and see if any fluid comes out. If the paint bubbles and you wrap over the paint then obviously you will have the wrap bubbling as well. You cant wrap over an unpainted tank because the only way to get the paint off a plastic tank in reality is to media blast them and thats what I've had to do in the past. Then the tank surface is too rough to wrap. My main question with the wrap and I've seen a bit of it done on youtube and its amazing stuff and the guys are skilled is, is it fuel proof from the point of view of spillage during refueling and the inevitable constant exposure to slight fuel vapors around the filler cap fitting etc. Ciao

Way too much fuss over this bike for mine. Personally I like it but, at the end of the day its just a V11 with different body work. Does it look better than the std V11? for mine no. It looks different and it looks good to my eye BUT before I'd consider it on a serious level I have 2 major concerns. A...its a solo bike now and needs to stay that way to maintain the style . B... I suspect that it probably doesn't hold much fuel after the under tank mods required to fit the V11 spine frame. If it holds any less than the current V11 then its just another in the long line of interesting but ultimately impractical bodywork customs. Ciao