pete roper

You may not be too old Chuck but put your hand on your heart, look me in the eye, and tell me you could do it justice........... I see girls walking down the street every day and know that I could disappoint them like the've never been disappointed before. Suggesting some sort of tawdry assignation would, inevitably, end badly and in both scenarios I could see lots of bruising, some missing flesh and probably a court case. Not to mention the public humiliation in the papers! A TV-4 is just spastic! Stand beside it and just hold one end of the handlebars and rock it from side to side. I think you'd find the AeroLario feels heavier! You have to put a block of lead on the seat when they're parked to stop them blowing away in a light breeze though! And it's got 120RWHP straight out of the box! That's almost twice what a V11 makes and 20 more than a well set up 8V! Both of which weigh an unholy amount more? Pete

Yup, V4 Tuono. Sex on wheels. I'm far too old for one but jeez they're fun.

If you want something comfortable that handles like a Sportsbike try a TV-4. It will mince you up and spit you out in teeny-weeny pieces! Pete

Griso was the closest thing that Guzzi made to a 'Sportsbike' for a decade. Only thing it didn't have is the 'Dog Shagging a Hockey Ball' riding position and being a Guzzi it was too long and heavy to really be a Sportsbike. The bike doesn't speak to everyone, that's fine by me, but properly set up they are both comfortable and, in true Guzzi form, punch well above their weight. Since their demise all Guzzi makes is bloated 'Cruisers' and mobile phone cases with wheels designed for the vapid and backward looking. It's a damn shame. Pete

You really are determined to worry yourselves to death aren't you??? Bloody bonkers the lot of you!

Building anything 'Non Standard' is never going to be cheap unless the improvements are simple bolt ons, (Like brakes, wheels, handlebars etc.) but in my opinion stuffing an engine that makes about 100hp and 70Ft/lbs of torque in a frame, and running that power through a driveline designed to take half the amount is not only foolish and idiotic, it's downright dangerous! Sorry, but there are clowns out there claiming stupidly large power and torque outputs for the 8V engine that are simply not possible because of how the motor breathes and the laws of physics. Now if people are so hungry for attention that they will believe this shit that's fine. But don't for one second think that when you're talking smack down the pub anybody with even the tiniest amount of knowledge or understanding is going to either take you seriously. I understand the crappy, limiting, unimaginative laws governing stuff in parts of Europe. It's one of the reasons why I find these bits of silliness so, well, silly. Rather than looking backwards to try and prove a point why not spend time arguing with the powers that be and lobbying for more freedom in design? If you can't get that? Move to somewhere that isn't quite so authoritarian and controlling! Pete

https://m.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=2000974783262577&id=100000502240025&set=a.854976921195708.1073741832.100000502240025&source=48&__tn__=EHH-RA V7 with 1400ccs wedged into it. Actually I just looked at it for the first time. Yes, it's the Germans but it isn't a V7, its just another nasty big block Tonti frame lash up. While these things are a horrid and to my mind dangerous joke they do have the excuse that German type approval laws mean they aren't allowed to build anything with a decent, modern, frame so they have to keep shoehorning motors into ancient frames to get them road legal. I don't know whether the use of carbs, (Pass the bucket please!) is mandatory if you're doing this? I'd hope so because it's inexcuseable if it isn't. Pete

Why? According to your avatar you own a V11 which is a two valve per cylinder motor. As stated before these are a completely different motive unit and have next to nothing in common. What do you think is going to happen? Your tappets will fail through association because your bike has 'Moto Guzzi' on the tank? Jesus wept.

This idea is so cretinous it is worthy of the Germans.

Oh they're all roller bikes Jon. While there are a few nutters in Germany who wrongly believe that the flat tappet motors make 'More Power' and therefore persist with stupid aftermarket parts the fact is that every 1200 I've ever put on a dyno, in stock trim, makes 96RWHP. The Germans, and some others, have this weird obsession with horsepower. WGAF? Really? A well mapped stock 1200 will hit the rev limiter in top eventually and will romp up to 180-200kph in the blink of an eye! Who wants to go faster than that on a public road? Where the 1400 excells is its torque. It really is a big step up over the 1200. Snap the throttle in any of the three lower gears and you'll grab some air. In first you really need to be well up the tank to stop it standing right up. As I said, fun.

No, that's Mark, ('Beetle's). We thought we'd build a single spark 1400, just because. Most people think you can just bolt on a set of 1400 barrels and Pistons. You can't. It's a lot more involved than that. Mark's bike has also been on a very serious weight reduction programme, you can't make a Griso much lighter. How does it go? Well he's spent a lot of time mapping it and is currently running a Power Corruptor so he can switch between an 'Economy' map for droning and a 'Bugger me drunk!' Map for when it's playtime. All 8V's like their fuel due to the cams and combustion chamber design.the 1400 drinks 98 octane like a drunken sailor on shore leave when you're having fun. I rode it for the first time since the map was finished earlier this week. It's a lot of fun. If anyone wants one? Bring us a running 1200, give us $8K AU and we'll give it back to you ready to go. If you can do it cheaper or have a mate that can? Take it to them and when they fuque it up bring it to us and give us $20K AU and we'll fix it for you! Here's a trio outside my 'Office', the Royal Hotel in Bungendore. Mine's the Greenie, then the 1400 and my offsider Michael's 1200. Pete

Single sparking a 1400 is a much bigger job than simply swapping the barrels and pistons over Jon. As you know, we've bin there and done that. Behold, a Griso 1400 in the wild!

Yes, only 8V's manufactured between 2007 and the middle of 2012.

The original tappets used on the 2008/9 8V's were chilled cast iron. These were of dubious quality due to heat treatment issues and a lot failed, (Mine didn't. I was an 'Early Adopter' of the 8V) because of this. The first factory 'Fix' was a swap to forged steel tappets with a DLC coating on it. All very clever but it missed the target due to other components in the valvetrain and the fact that the 8V's run so very cool. After a few months it became apparent that the fix didn't work as the failures continued, not generally as rapidly but they still occurred. By the middle of 2010 the factory knew, categorically, that the flat tappets weren't going to work. They also realised the solution was to go to rollers, or if my belief is right, return to rollers which I believe the engine was originally designed for before some bean-counting wonk over-ruled the engineers. How did I deduce this? Simple really. From that point in mid 2010 there was another *Update* to the flat tappets, they gained a B0 part number with the suffix 'Final' but not only that but during assembly of the motors the cylinder heads started to be marked with a drill mark in the paint which indicated that some of the important componentry of the change to roller tappets had already been installed! Why would they do such a thing unless they KNEW they were all doomed and wanted to save themselves money as inserting those parts requires removing the heads. This probably needs a bit of further explanation. There are four 'Kits' available for conversion of flat tappet engines to rollers. Early, pre mid 2010 models without the drill Mark in the paint require the more expensive 'C' kit. This requires the heads to be removed to insert shims under the inlet valve Spring seats, presumably to increase the seating poundage of the valves to avoid float due to the slightly more massive nature of the roller tappets. Models from mid 2010 through to late 2011 require the 'B' kit. This does not require removal of the heads as the shims are already in there. From late 2011 through to the change over point in early-mid 2012 there is a third kit, the 'A' kit required but this is because of changes to the spark plug tube arrangement and rocker cover sealing, nothing to do with the valves. The final kit, the 'D' kit, is specifically finally for later model 1200 Sports which had the later rocker covers etc. but none were ever manufactured with the shims under the valves so, like 'C' kit bikes, the heads have to come off. Getting back to business though one has to ask why, since they knew that all the flat tappet engines were going to fail and knew that the fix was rollerisation, they didn't just start building them with rollers? Well my belief is that at that time there were no rollers available but when they did have a sub-contractor up and running they were gearing up for production and launch of the Cali 1400. With the reputation of the 1200 motor already in the toilet a decision was made to stick all available roller top ends into the Calis and in an act of incredibly cynical bastardry just continue selling 1200's KNOWING they were going to fail. When sufficient roller top ends were available they started puting them in the 1200's, (Presumably after the rush of new model purchasers had slowed and Cali production could be eased off.) and finally, rather than issuing a recall with a 'Mea Culpa' they issued a 'Technical Update' where, if certain extremely stringent conditions were met, when the flat tappets failed, Piaggio would supply a kit for nothing but you'd still have to pay for installation! If you couldn't meet those conditions you got hung out to dry. It was unconscionable! As it is I've done a lot of rollerisations now. I stopped counting at about a hundred. I defended the flat tappet design for years because I wasn't seeing evidence of failure, (You don't until it is very far advanced.) but they were failing. As soon as I started seeing failures though I instituted a strict policy. Any flat tappet bike that came into my shop, whether it was displaying any symptoms or not, I pulled a cambox on to check the tappets. If the customer said 'No' my tools stayed in the box. Why, because it became immediately apparent that the failure rate is 100%! Some may take a bit longer than others but they will all fail. By 20,000km there is always visible damage to a tappet. By 30,000 they will all be 'Bullseyed'. I have also seen tappets hollowed and concave at under 11,000km! I'm pretty sure I know the reason for the failure too. It's a combination of factors, not just one, that kills them. Make no mistake though. They will all die.

All the flat tappets fail, it's not a material issue per-se, well it is but why it fails is not down to the reasons most people think they fail. Tell yer Stelvio owning mate to drop a cam box off and check the DLC. It will be failing. Then look at the cams and see the signs of damage on them. If you're half as much of an engineer as you are a smug bastard it will be obvious to you why the system shits the bed. Pete

Phil, the gaskets are at Michael's shop and he's shearing this week and I can't find the gasket So! ARRRGH. They are there, I have 20 in stock but I'll have to get him to dig them out. Hope you don't mind if they stink of lanolin! Pete

Buggered if I know what the *Correct* name for them is but they aren't the same as the head gaskets, that's completely different function technology. PM me your address and I'll send you a pair for nix and you can explain it. I'm too old, tired and #@$&@#@....

Just a word of warning if you are going to use either Griso or Breva/Sport rocker covers you really need to use the Valpollini 'Coated Metal' valve cover gaskets otherwise there is a very good chance you will be plagued by constant gasket failures! Why? I have absolutely no idea! After donkey's years of there being no issue with the standard 'Old Style' gaskets though the last of the 2 Valvers developed the unerring ability to squeeze them out from between the mating surface and it doesn't seem to matter what you do they'll keep on doing it! Pete

Also consider that the alternator precludes it's fitment to the Spineframe. While not a killer it would mean that you would need to swap out the timing chest cover and work out a way of mounting an alternator onto the foreshortened crank of the CARC bike motor. It's been done before but it's not a bolt-in swap. As others have said find out if it's a flat or roller motor and if a flattie how many miles/Km it has done. If a flattie it WILL need rollerising. Factor in $1500 for that. Pete

My guess Bill would be that one is the water drain from the fuel cap surround and the other one might be something like the vent to atmosphere from the charcoal canister if it indeed has a vent to atmosphere? Pete

Chuck, I think it's made out of some sort of mild steel but I'm not sure. Maybe a spring steel? It's able to be crushed beyond its limit of elasticity quite easily I found out!

Shims can certainly, the spacer is a sort of glorified wavy washer, well not so much 'Wavy' as 'Corrugated', I'm buggered if I could think of a way of manufacturing them in small batches. I feel the pinion shims are probably the same as the V11 ones, they go under the pinion support bearings in the *Neck* of the reactive bridge. The collapsible spacer goes between the two pinion bearings. On the ones I've had apart there seems to be no provision for shimming the crownwheel. Adjustment for backlash and one assumes mesh seems to be done solely by moving the pinion in and out, something that is probably OK given the monstrous oversize of the teeth. There is probably heaps of toe and heel coverage so you only have to worry about face and flank. (For those unfamiliar with setting up spiral bevel sets the old maxim is 'Face and flank? Move the crank, [The pinion.] Toe and heel? Move the wheel, [The crownwheel.].) What shits me Chuck is that they won't just sell you the bits. I've got a perfect CW&P set up sitting in the bench that is unusable because I can't get a couple of stupid little parts and can't work on it how to get the phenolic type cage of the pinion nose bearing out of the reactive bridge without arseing it up! I do know that there is heat used in assembly as the pinion bearings are a tight interference fit in the neck of the bridge and have to be seated correctly on their shims and register otherwise the nut will loose it's preload when the box gets hot, (Which is what occasionally happens.). It's all part of this ongoing and creeping acceptance of the de-skilling of the workforce. Rendering more and more people into the thrall of planned obsolescence. One of the blokes I drink with at the Royal has just retired. He spent most of his life building differentials for high performance vehicles. Now he's pulled down the shutters. He couldn't find ANYONE who either had the skills or the desire to learn them to take over the business! How sad is that??? I'm just so glad I've got Michael on board. Not only is he a skilled tradesman in his own right but he's keen as mustard to learn new stuff AND likes Guzzis! I feel like I've been kissed on the arse by a golden fairy!

More bad luck than shitty stick but it still enrages me that a.) they don't use Loctite on the fucking pinion nut and b.) we aren't allowed to buy the spacers, pinion shims and the rest of the crap to properly rebuild these great lumps 'O munt! Pete

No, but the pinion bearing preload is set by a collapsible spacer so it's higher resistance than the solid spaced bearings of earlier boxes, (If set up correctly.) also the bearings themselves are more numerous and much, much larger than in previous designs. The CARC box is pretty much indestructible. I've covered the major things that should be checked and a few bits of preventative maintenance like loctiting the pinion nut on other boards but apart from the early batch of crappy crownwheel support bearings and the occasional pinion nut dumping it's preload they are so massively over engineered you can't kill 'em with a shitty stick! Pete

Just revisiting this again and getting back to first principles. Are you sure that the throttle body balance is spot on? If it isn't there will be knocking from the gearbox and, if it's got a single plate clutch, from the springs in the friction plate. I seem to recall you saying it has a twin plate clutch which should be silent with the lever released but sing a bit with the lever pulled. The single plater behaves in the opposite way. Out of balance TB's though will accentuate the accelerative and decelerative actions on the input shaft to the box and the knocking of the primaries. Also if your idle speed is too low it will be a lot worse. Pete