pete roper

That’s a Corbin seat. No, passengers aren’t a thing with a Corbin. Mind you passengers have to be pretty masovhistic to get on the back of any Griso! I have a Corbin on Yellow Bike. It is a superb saddle for my fat arse!

Why would I be rattled by that? Most of what you say is, IMHO, correct. Where I would disagree is the combustion chamber shape. The 8V motor has a delightfully *modern* combustion chamber and I’m sure the air/fuel mixture that gets ignited in it burns pretty well. The attention to detail in regards to squish would seem to back this up if for no other reason than to clean the motor up. As you say the higher consumption is down to waste, not poor combustion and it’s not so much a need for ‘Resistance’ in the pipe/s although I too have used that description because it’s easier to understand, but a need to slow down the gasses exit and use the pipe harmonics to try and limit excessive charge loss on overlap. While I agree that there is a certain ‘Raw’ and unsophisticated feel to the earlier Hi-Cams the fact is they are much, much less efficient. Everything in them is heavier and the frictional losses in that motor are enormous which is the reason the factory was never able to get satisfactory, reliable, power out of it. It is also far more complex and heavy overall than the ‘Nuovo Hi-Cam’ and believe me, having humped enough of the wretched things around over the last sixteen years the new motor is no lightweight! Neither motor was at the time of their introduction, anywhere near the cutting edge of IC technology but head to head the later motor is superior in every way to Todero’s swansong.

Most of the ‘Poor mileage’ thing is or was to do with the shitty factory mapping, especially with the early maps, along with the problems associated with loud pipes/short pipes. Certainly if you ride around at higher rpm fuel economy plummets but that’s the result of the side draft heads and narrow included valve angle + cam timing. To get it to produce the *Needed* 100 RWHP the sacrifice was made in VE at higher rpm. As long as I’m not really sticking the spurs in both of mine will return 220-230Km before the fuel light comes on and that happens when there is still about 4.5 litres in the tank meaning my range is about 300+Km before I sputter to a halt. I don’t think that’s terrible? Yes, the flat tappet fiasco was a disgrace but it is what it is and once rollerised there are rarely further repercussions. While there are other issues with CARC series bikes generally most of them are now well known and usually easily addressed. I don’t see the 8V’s as any more or less reliable generally than the 2 valvers and both, using the W5AM controller, are prone to abuse by those ignorant of how the system works and the beetle-browed followers of the ‘Loud pipe and shitty air filter will make it go faster’ brigade! As most of you know, I’m an 8V evangelist. I love the motor and the CARC bike series and feel they were generally overlooked and ignored with no real justification. As for Griso? No, they aren’t for everyone but the day I can’t ride mine any more will be one of the saddest days of my life……

The one above certainly looks clean but the pipe without a dB killer is a problem. I suppose if you think making a ‘Look at me’ racket rather than actually having the engine perform well is your thing then fine but the 8V does not respond well to an open, (Or short!) pipe. It will gut the bottom end and midrange. The other thing I see that rings alarm bells is the crash-bars. Grisos actually tend to crash well but those bars, in fact any of the bars I’ve seen, are liable to direct force to the engine case/timing chest cover area and of they get damaged it’s essentially bye-bye engine. I personally would prefer to take the hit on a rocker cover and the oil cooler cover. If there is any more substantial damage it’s going to get written off anyway.

Actually you can use the rocker covers from any ‘Square Head’ 2-Valve model from 1983 to the end of 2-Valve production. The head castings are essentially identical for all of them so the mating surface joint is the same for head and rocker cover on all of them. From the MkIII LeMans and T5 all the way through to the very last Cali Vintages. All the same!

A 2013 Griso would have originally used the 1200cc, 8V Hi Cam motor. Presumably that was blown up and the entire motive unit was swapped out for one from a 2V 1200 Sport as the clutch and gearbox are not interchangeable between the two motive units. While the 2V motive unit would slip straight in to the later cycleparts there would be other issues to address like the inlet trumpets from the airbox to throttlebodies as the 8V used 50mm throttlebodies where as the 2V models use smaller 45(?) mm units.

Both the older 2-VPC models, both 850 and 1100, were made in the flat red. There were also a couple of runs of 1200-8V models with the flat red. The Griso was never produced with the 1200-2VPC motor, not in any colour. Apart from the swap to a roller top end in the middle of 2012 all the 1200-8V Grisos are essentially identical apart from the 2015 on models using the Cali 1400 sump. Both Bill Hagan and I had flat red Griso 1200’s. Here’s one of a much younger me and my Griso Pinko in LA!

While you’ve got the arse end out of it are you going to Loctite the pinion nut on the bevelbox as well? I’d advise it and it’s easy to do without disassembly. Use ‘Super Wick-in’ and just a couple of drops run down a thin screwdriver or even a satay stick onto the threads. It can save a lot of heartache.

I can’t remember exactly. Probably about 30,000km.

They’re better than many but I still wouldn’t put them back in. What are the outer races like? Not like these I hope?

Do you hear a ‘Click’ from the relay which is in a block on the RH side under the seat. If you get a ‘Click’ but no start it’s probably Startus Interuptus. Well documented on the Ghetto.

I decided to put Red Bike up for sale today. It’s had the ‘Full Motomoda Treatment’ in case anyone’s interested in Oz. [img]https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52767196911_28f284759f_b.jpg[/img] Shit. Can’t post pics here from a link.

The company’s name was ‘Staintune’, they made stainless steel exhausts, very nice ones back in the day. Their later products were shite.

My Griso makes a wonderful racket when I ‘Give it the berries’! Thing is it’s wonderful for me. The intake honk and exhaust note are just fine, and I ride with earplugs in every single ride because I’m half deaf from a youth of working on noisy motorbikes because everybody knew that noise=power! Really, pipe noise is simply a way of pissing other people off. They don’t want to hear your f*cking noisy motorbike! Now there are some machines that sound sublime, even if un-muffled. A V11 or Honda VTR with a full set of Staintunes are a couple of examples, but even then their use should be considered. Gunning it away from the lights in a built up area is, simply, antisocial. Any of the CARC bikes with a 2 into 1 system sound like shit anyway, the 8V’s particularly, if they are unmuffled, to the general public. Why piss people off? Especially as it will do absolutely nothing in terms of increasing performance??!!

The original can actually works well but it is very heavy. With the 8V motor pipe length is very important, a short pipe, like a wide open one, will gut the bottom end and midrange. It's a result of the head design and camming.

Noisy pipe doesn't make it faster. Less said about the 'Tune' the better. Snake oil salesmen gotta sell snake oil....

Well yes, but once again, at least over here, it depends which state you're in and also where in some states you are. In NSW in the area around me I can get away, usually, with that 65-75mph cruise easily enough. Open road limit is 100kph which is basically 62mph. Given the fact almost all speedos over-read by several kph and any tyre wear increases the discrepancy that 110-115kph indicated on the dash is close enough for Highway Patrol to generally leave you alone. Once you are further out west the open road limit goes up to 110 kph and cops tend to be fewer and further between anyway and I usually trundle along at an indicated 120-125. That may engender a headlight flash from any passing walloper but as long as you roll off a bit when you see them they'll rarely light you up properly and pull you over. Victoria is a whole other thing. Traffic enforcement there is draconian. They'll gleefully ping you for 3kph over the limit and once they've pulled you over you won't be getting a warning. They're humourless bastards as well. I've never been pulled in Queensland or Western Oz so I don't know what the go is there, or the Northern Territory for that matter. Tasmania the cops seemed fairly chill unless there has been a spate of mainlanders crashing and then they have a crack-down. Really though the way I ride nowadays, even on the Griso, I'm unlikely to attract an enormous amount of attention. Apart from anything else I'm acutely aware of not only my own physical limitations in terms of skill and perceptions but also the consequences of me 'Getting it wrong'! Quite simply I think any crash serious enough to break a bone would probably be the end of me. I'd actually prefer to avoid that! If I really wanted to push the envelope in my dotage I'd simply book a track day. Everyone is going the same way, there's tons of run-off and should the worst happen there'll be an ambulance on hand to scrape up the pieces! Far better than trying to go fast on the road with errant stock, wildlife, pensioners towing caravans, trees and other road furniture just off the bitumen. Going fast there is like playing Russian Roulette with several of the chambers loaded! Sod that for a game of soldiers!

If you simply roll off the throttle it simply slows down with moderate engine braking if in one of the 'Auto' modes. If you 'Change down' using one of the selectors it will move the pulley to whichever ratio is appropriate but with a higher engine speed so you get more braking. Hit the shifter again and it will move the pulleys to a higher point again and you can do that until it detects that going 'Down' another ratio will cause a dangerous over-rev. When the TCU detects that will happen it won't shift any further and let's you know by sticking a bloody great exclamation mark up on the dashboard screen! If using the 'Faux Manual' mode rather than there being a tacho there is a row of lights that illuminates across the top of the dashboard to warn you of the fact you're approaching the rev limiter and in the lower ratios as soon as they start appearing you'd better be ready to shift up as hitting the rev limiter with the throttle wide open can be, errrr? *Exciting* to say the least. I have no idea really what sort of engine speed the lights actually start appearing at. Only thing I know for sure is that in fully automatic 'Touring' mode the engine isn't spinning very fast at all when you're just cruising along at 100-110kph/60-70mph and it's very smooth and comfortable. To make more rapid progress, for overtaking say, simply crack the throttle open and the engine and transmission take over and you'll quickly find yourself doing the old 'Ton' with little effort. If you want it to it will happily cruise at 90+mph all day but it's not its forte. Just bimbling along at that 65-75mph zone is super relaxed and pleasurable.

The only Honda DTC bike I've ridden is the 1100, that was many years ago. It was blindingly fast and you could just *Feel* it was horrifically complex. It was utterly soulless as well. The Mana can seem a bit anodyne at times but the Honda was, for all it's blinding speed, just dull. We don't get, and never have, the DTC 750 twin in Oz. While the Mana is electronically complex the electronics are very reliable, my NA has given me no issues in 80,000km. The actual CVT transmission is very simple to work on, especially if you have the factory tools for belt replacement, (I do.) The reprogramming after belt replacement has now been sorted by the Guzzidiag crew so nobody needs to rely on a dealer any more for that!

Yup. The 'False Manual' mode simply moves the pulleys to one of seven positions/diameters and then the engine accelerates the vehicle until the next *Ratio* is chosen. In the full *Auto* modes the E-CVT simply allows the motor to wind to its maximum torque point, (In 'Touring'.) and then allows the pulleys to do the accelerating, (Up to a point.). With 'Sport' it simply moves the pulley take-over point up the rev range. 'Rain' mode is a sort of wimpy *Soft Cock* mode where turning the throttle doesn't seem to do anything much at all! In all honesty I see little point in 'Sport', 'Rain' or the false manual option. I just leave it in 'Touring' and ride it like the huge 'Twist and Go' it is. The only good aspect of the 'Manual' option is that even in the full-auto modes you can use the selector paddles or gear lever to 'Change Down' ratios to take advantage of engine braking at higher rpm. Useful on steep hills etc. Really though it's an absolute joy to ride in a relaxed manner. I've done some long, long days on both my NA in Oz and my GT in the US and got off feeling far fresher than I would of on a 'Conventional' motorbike. As I've said before, like Griso a Mana isn't for everybody. That doesn't mean it isn't a damn fine motorbike. Needless to say after saying I was going to leave it stock I'm already buying Andreani fork cartridges for it! I just can't help meself........

Well not actually *New* new but new to me. For years I've been wanting a Mana GT. This is the model with the full touring fairing as opposed to my 'Plain Jane' NA model. Well a couple of weeks ago one with a blown motor came up in Sydney for $950 so I bought it on a punt. Went and collected it last Wednesday and sadly, it's a shitter. Not worth me swapping the motor out of my NA into but only useful for spares. Not really a worry though as it came with a set of brand spanking new Sport Corsa tyres on it. They must of been put on the day the motor blew they're that new! That's half what I paid for the bike right there! Anyway I decided it was time to stop shilly-shallying around and found this on Gumtree Super clean, 40,000km and owned by an ex-customer of mine. Problem is it's in Perth so I have to get it shipped. My Givi luggage off my NA will bolt straight on and I'll be set for my touring steed for the rest of my days! It also means I can sell my Red Griso which was going to be set up as a tourer but the Mana makes far more sense.

Just buy a Stelvio one and mark the stick appropriately.

The valve clearance check procedure is essentially the same as all other twin cam Aprilias. Removing the cams isnt really a big deal but it could of been made so much easier by just having a plug in the front wall of the timing chest to allow insertion of the locking pin without removing the radiator and timing chest cover. I agree with you though. The chances of high mileage V100's being rebuilt are very slim. That just doesn't happen with modern machines nowadays.

No, from what I've heard the build quality has been pretty good but as with so many models before the bean counters were obviously allowed too much input and the ship has been spoilt for a ha'porth of tar. That leads to the issue of, especially with these sort of truncated designs as the Swiss thing above. I'll expand on this in a bit if you like but my beef is with everything behind the gearbox/swingarm spindle.