Lucky Phil

I have had 5 different muffler combo's on my bike as a 2 valver and 2 different cross overs and the bike ran well/exactly the same on all of them. Below is the "delta" map of a 2000 V11 Sport main fuel map compared to the factory "Titanium" main map. So you know the expensive new ECU they supply with the Titanium mufflers same as Ducati used to do with the approved Termi exhausts. Note there is zero difference in the fuel map. Ducati used to do a similar thing, sell you an $1800ecu with Termi mufflers and just add 3% fuel everywhere which wasn't necessary. My 1198 has a Full Ti Akropovic exhaust and what do Akra say to do when you fit their system? Nothing. Fit it and ride it which I have done and it's fine. You want to get the absolute maximum out of a set of mufflers or exhaust combo on pretty much any bike then you'll need to map it but for 99% of bikes 99% of the time it isn't necessary in my experience. You might need to tweak the Co and the air bleeds a little but other than that install and ride.

No "correct tune" required. Just bolt them on and ride it on the stock factory map. Phil

Well not strictly true. One advantage of Diesel engines is they have no throttle body and therefore no throttle blades. The engine speed and ability to produce torque is controlled by varying the volume of fuel only. A piston aircraft engine with a variable pitch prop the power is controlled by adjusting the throttle to a specific manifold pressure and the engine rpm is controlled with the pitch lever. It's a bit like a helicopter driven by a gas turbine. In that case the engine turns 100% rpm all the time and when you pull up on the collective pitch it coarsens the blade angle of attack which provides the lift and this requires more power so it schedules more fuel to maintain the RPM at that load. RPM stays the same. Turbopro aircraft much the same. An NA petrol engine will produce a manifold vacuum at idle and part throttle, more vacuum at high rpm on the overrun with a closes throttle and a little less than atmospheric at WOT. Before takeoff in a piston engine a/c the pilot will do a 30inch check at the threshold run up bay to ensure he is making full power before the actual takeoff. @Chuck needs to chime in he's the expert in this area.

Yes same. Phil

I don't really need nav on the bikes but I often wondered if this would work. I spent a 42 year career in aviation and cared for my hearing immaculately after seeing a lot of the old guys I started working with deaf as posts. Always wore ear plugs on the bike and never went to loud music concerts or such things. Didn't stop me from getting Tinnitus though

It's a question without a definitive answer. What throttle position? what altitude? what rpm? what load? Throttle at idle? throttle closed and engine at 3000rpm? Phil

Some detailed images of the actual issue might have been nice. Images of speedo drives with blobs of JB on them don't tell us much I'm a images person I don't read very well. Phil

He's better than a nerd. He's also a commercial pilot with a captains rating for a major US airline, owns two performance car tuning and accessory companies and has written a few books on automotive turbocharging. He knows his stuff. Phil

Gasoline. Yes the Germans had the burden of high octane fuel in insufficient quantities and quality. They also used aromatics to boost the octane that had a higher vapour point and resulted in sever fuel dilution which destroyed engine bearings. Big issue for them for a while. They were also short of Nickle for exhaust valves which led to them developing chrome plated exhaust valves. They were fighting with one hand tied behind their backs in engineering terms thankfully for us. It took the allies over a year to figure out the Nitrous oxide injection the German were using. They found the systems fitted in crashed German aircraft but they couldn't figure out the gas they were using. A lot of the German piston engine tech was lost after the war when the gas turbine took over and designers are now starting to use what they developed in WW2 in modern engine design such as Direct gasoline injection. Yes I've seen just about all of Gregs video's and he's very good although my Spitfire wing knowledge comes from another source Gregs backs up my readings on the subject. His car stuff is good as well. The English post war had a knack of burying the brilliance of the "non English" and exaggerating their own peoples contribution. The winners write the history as it were. Phil

From my personal images Daytona pits 1988.

Did you know the iconic Spitfire elliptical wing was actually a German design? Phil

Pramac leave Ducati! Let me tell you my former BIL ran a large automotive accessory company here a few years ago that sponsored the top team in V8 Supercars ( he was also authorising the sponsorship payments )and their #1 goal in sponsoring them was seconds of airtime. They had staff to time the TV airtime they got for their sponsorship dollar. No doubt these days it would include all the social media as well. Will Pramac sign up for a bike/company that presently gets about zero or close to zero air or social media time for their sponsorship dollar at the tail end of the field? I don't think so myself. I might tell you a few stories about the cutthroat business of minor sponsors graphics on a race car and it's allocation of prominence and how private race teams pull the wool over the sponsors eyes to get additional funding. One day maybe. On another MotoGP topic how well has Fabio Quartararo done contractually out of Yamaha. Gets paid way more than any other rider and has a built in excuse riding a Yamaha for lacklustre performances and his worth and reputation remain in tact for the next round of rider musical chairs. I mean how could you refuse that deal. Yamaha and Honda as well really needed to move their managers on years ago. Phil

All true. Phil

Nice duo. Sounded like a Jews Harp in there as well. Phil

From memory you just fit this seal flush with the outer case. It will tap deeper which can be good to compensate for a wear mark on the output sleeve. Also important for these and the bevel box seals is to use a unidirectional seal. Most aftermarket retailers will sell you a bi directional or universal seal. The original spec Unidirectional is superior. Phil

If your homesick Mick here another CC one for you and a juxtaposition by Sara Blasco from the movie Little fish.

His style reminds me of Kevin Schwantz quite a lot. Watch him in the heavy braking zones. His line into the corner can sometimes be a metre inside everyone else's line. Schwantz was the same, hit the brakes and point the bike straight at the apex and still somehow be able to get it turned without running wide. Zero classic race line here. He is also a bellwether for a Motogp team. Too many teams hire older riders who get to the point where their riding style is set in concrete and they then expect the team/factory to find all the solutions with design and engineering. A young rookie just adapts and rides what he's given and often makes the old riders look silly. Honda need to hire a young rookie. Having said all that you won't really know what Acostas real potential is until he has a factory seat next year and the expectation comes into play. At the moment he's not expected to be a winner but in the factory team that will be different. Some deal with this and some don't. The same as some deal with their first big/serious injury and bounce back and some are never the same rider again post injury. Time will tell. Phil

This is interesting. Are we going to to go down another stupid path? You bet we are. All of this guys stuff is very good. Mainly technical engine stuff.

I'll take the gauge holder Scud. Phil

Of course they did because they have the tools to remove the caps and compress the springs again if needed and are charging by the hour to do it. All things being equal the qty of oil by volume will equate to the desired air gap give or take an amount that's moot for most road riders. Is measured level a better way to go? Yes but for most of us mere mortals it's not a huge deal. Setting the levels with the forks out of the bike and the springs removed and the fork bled and fully compressed is the ultimate way to do it but who wants to do that every time you are fine tuning the forks oil level? Support the front of the bike and remove the caps and springs, collapse the forks measure the oil level, adjust level up or down as required and reassemble and ride. Decide on more or less oil height depending on the test results and repeat. I mean seriously who has the time for that? Oil height level tuning is in the domain of the race track prep with the tooling and the mechanics to play with it. For the average road rider it's fill by recommended volume. The level doesn't affect the damping performance only the overall spring rate and only then biased to the second half of the fork travel. What's the other alternative? Fill to volume and ride the bike. If you think you need to go one way or the other then park the bike remove each cap individually one at a time and either add 10ml by volume or suck 10ml by volume and ride it again. Don't get bogged down in the minutia of exact measured levels because even having a small level difference between legs wont matter. Are the springs guaranteed to be precisely the same rate on both sides? No, and they won't be so getting too anal about precise levels is a waste of time. Phil

Andreani are full of shit. They still list their 105/G08E carts for 01-06 V11's. Italians are Italians after all. Phil

I watched a doco on Cold Chisel last night. I don't have a single album of theirs but god they had some great songs. Done Walker wrote brilliant lyrics and this is an anthem to many Vietnam vets along with " I as only nineteen" by Redgum. Khe Sanh was banned from commercial radio for years because of some of the lyrics in the song but the band didn't give a @#!#$# and kept playing pubs and venues. In the end record companies were forced to sign them simply because of their massive live following. I must buy a best of album from Cold Chisel.

The cable turns without load. Add a load, ie speedo and it slips. Simple. Phil

My feelings aren't hurt, really Phil