pete roper

It will be like starting with a virtually new bike. It will need the usual CARC bike stuff, swingarm bearings and shock linkages greased, check the drain hoses from the airbox are intact and plugged, sump spacer gasket replacing, (Optional but recommended.) and a full service and tune by someone who knows what they are doing. Apart from that. Press the button and watch the horizon come towards you. Don't buy 'Tuning' shit from charlatans and you'll be fine

How about "Stick this up yer arse you thieving Pommy scumbags!" Works for me.

I'm still around. I'm more than happy for others to manufacture plates to my design. What shits me is when I'm not given credit for the design and people pocket all the profit. By all means make a few bucks to cover your time and effort but if selling them to people add enough to the cost to make a donation to MSF. I don't think that's too much to ask? Simply stealing someone else's work without any by-your-leave like the pricks in Huddersfield did and selling it without any attribution or charitable donation shits me to tears but as I've said before, every morning I wake up in Bungendore. They wake up in f*cking Huddersfield! That fills me with great joy!

There has been an awful lot of bollocks spouted about the V7 Sport over the years. Anyone without blinkers on who has ridden one knows that. The 850 LeMans is a much better machine by orders of magnitude. Over the years I've worked on several, usually ones imported from the US that needed a fair bit of work to get them even remotely rideable. A lot of the owners simply couldn't believe after the hype what a slow, uninspiring and generally weak motorbike they are! 750cc, small valve heads, weedy 30mm VHB carbs. Bleargh! Sure they look pretty but that's as far as it goes.

To be honest I don't think there is an awful lot of point in trying to increase the performance of the V11 donk. It was the final iteration of the single spark pushrod motor, it used the same profile cam as the earlier 'Production Racers' which are very similar if not identical to the B10 or 'K' cam profile. It's warmed up about as much as it can be without beginning to compromise reliability and in reality a V11 never was, and certainly isn't any more, a 'Contemporary Sports Bike'. Oh there are some 'Hot' V11's out there. The 'Mighty Scura' I bought from a bloke here, then sold to Chuck and it has now passed on to another owner here, is a stupidly 'Big' engined motorbike but it has a whole raft of modifications including pistons, a lot of headwork, maybe a cam, I'm not sure? Anyway that thing is a beast, but it's the sum of its parts not the result of a simple drop-in cam. You also need to consider that if you change the breathing of the motor you will need to alter the fueling. While this is now possible a lot easier and more accurately now the mapping is an open book so you no longer have to depend on crude devices like Power Commanders it will still require considerable work, and I'd be extremely wary of any map supplied to be used in conjunction with the cam change because such things are usually a crude 'One size fits all' solution and often just involve flinging a whole load more fuel everywhere just 'Because'. Hopeless. A correctly tuned and mapped V11 is a lovely thing. Any performance gains you can achieve, even with something as radical as the aforementioned 'Mighty Scura' are really pretty much academic. Sure, if you want to pursue that rabbit hole by all means do, but a cam alone won't do a lot and it's very easy to start haemorrhaging money like there's no tomorrow if you do. Believe me. I've done it!

Yup, they kept selling them until '17 and stated that as year of manufacture but I believe they were simply 'New old stock' from Italy. When I was at the factory in 2016 the only big block motors sitting around in crates, (I think by then all component build work was being done elsewhere, probably Noale and the finished components shipped to Mandello for the final assembly.) were Cali 1400's and Griso. They may of still been doing some smallblock building but I saw no evidence of it I can remember. Thing is this was, even then, not unprecedented. None of the 8V 1200 Sports were ever produced with the Roller Tappet top end. Now in markets they were sold in they continued to be sold and plated as a current model year bike right up until 2015 but all other models swapped from flat tappets in early to mid 2012. Late model, post 2011, Sports had all the changes to the motor that the last, pre roller, engines in other models had. Just small stuff like the rockers were re-designed and, from memory, that is the time the breather plate sealing system was changed for just two examples but they all still had flat tappets which suggests to me they were all manufactured prior to the swap to the roller top end. By then the factory knew that all flat tappet top ends would fail and as soon as they had spare production capacity after the initial sales spurt of the launch of the Cali 14 they started using the roller top end in everything else. Why not the Sport? The only logical explanation I can see is that by then the Sport was an exhausted product but rather than modifying them they decided, probably because they weren't sold in the heavily litigious United States, to just push them out the door in other markets to mug punters and let them wear the consequences.

The Big Blocks with the history that stretches back to 1967 are no more. I'm not certain when the last 1400's were built? I'd think 2018/19 at a guess. The CARC series ceased all production in 2016 but all models other than the Griso I think stopped in 2014 as none of the other models were built using the Cali 1400 sump which the Griso adopted in 2015. The truth of the matter is that the 'Nuovo Hi Cam' in both 1200 and 1400 form was never going to be able to meet €5. I love the motor but I'll be the first one to tell you that it is inefficient, thirsty and dirty! It's side draft porting and long cam overlap mean that cylinder fill is compromised in a large part of the rev range and pipe harmonics are crucial to performance, (Some of you may be familiar with my carpet-chewing, spittle-flecked ranting about the unsuitability of 'Shorty' exhausts put on Griso's for styling purposes!). Even at the optimal point there is still a considerable loss of unused incoming charge that, due to the head design, simply gallops across the top of the piston and exits the exhaust valves rather that filling the cylinder and producing work. That means fuel economy is shit and those hydrocarbons are wasted just dirtying up the environment. Even with air injection as used on the last of the 1400's they were a dirty thing, made worse by people putting loud, unbaffled pipes without Catalytic converters on them so they sounded like a shipping container full of farting elephants! No, the Big Blocks are gone and I reckon the Smallblocks won't be far behind. Thing is neither will I so it doesn't worry me unduly and within twenty years internal combustion, at least of fossil fuels, will have been consigned to the dustbin of history anyway! And good riddance! Anybody who is an 'Enthusiast' will still be able to get fuel for their old vehicles but as a day to day option they simply won't exist. That's fine, people will have newer and different vehicles and toys. I am always amazed though by how far things have come in my lifetime as far as vehicular propulsion has gone. If you'd told me as the spotty kid on his first moped that when I retired I'd be riding a motorbike that effortlessly made twice the horsepower of my dads car from an engine only two thirds the size I would of looked at you as if you were barmy!

A week or so ago someone on WG linked up a YouTube vid of some 24 carat dunce who decided to film himself riding from Denver to Colorado Springs on his Gixxer. T-shirt and tennis shoes + helmet. I looked up how far that was on Giggle Maps. The trip took him 20 minutes or so I think. Hopefully his distinctively painted bike could be identified and some things will happen to him. It was f*cking insane.

Thank you sir.

If no one over there wants them and you don't I'll stick them in my inventory.

Doc's observations are the most relevant. All the blocks essentially have the same oil gallery layout from the late 850T to the last of the Cali 1400's. For it to WORK you could basically bolt any old shit on there and it will do the job as far as a sump for holding the slimy stuff goes. The problem is the physical dimensions and the other parts involved. As already mentioned there is the matter of the width of the 'Broad Sump' spacer as illustrated above. Other things to consider would be the need to buy the associated oil filter and OPRV mounting scaffolding and the fact you would have to add an oil cooler and/or provision for a bypass to return the oil to the circuit if the thermostat kicks in. I don't believe the Quota's used an oil cooler? Then there is the issue of oil pick-up exposure, but being a five speed this probably isn't a huge concern but I'd be tempted to fit a sloppage sheet if I was doing this on something like a Quota. If dropping the sump is really such a chore there are alternatives. As well as the one mentioned above Harper's have made an 'Outsider' extension for years but I don't know if it would foul the Quota exhaust or, alternatively, you could simply use the sump and filter/OPRV mount off a California 1400 or post 2015 Griso. This last option will not only give you an easily replaceable filter but a lower profile sump making it more sensible if you are mad enough to actually take a Quota to anywhere it's going to use its full suspension travel! I personally never had an issue with removing the sump at filter change time in 30+ years of riding bikes with the system. I just thought it was *Normal* and the way it was. It's only 18 M6 bolts for heavens sakes. It's scarcely akin to the Labours of Hercules!

Might be a bit of an issue Phil. On the CARC bikes the bearings are in the frame.....

About two and a half hours to strip and inspect. Make it three and a half if the bearings need swapping out a setting the outer cones out of the frame is a bit of a frontbottom. On the bearings? The bearings themselves are common as muck and cheap as chips. The problem is they have a strange sealing system around the edge of the inner race and I've not in seventeen years of looking been able to find an aftermarket replacement. If greased properly on assembly, ie packed absolutely full of high quality 'Waterproof' marine grade grease they will last a very long time, especially if they are re-packed every year or two. It's not something that will need to be done often but it does need doing. At the same time the shock linkage bearings on both the wishbone and double conrod need the same treatment. If the bearings or pins are found to be history it's best to rebuild the wishbone but while they are available it is about the same cost to simply buy a new double conrod, (Grease it before installation.) than buying all the individual bearings, seals and pins required to rebuild the buggered one. If the wishbone bearings are rusty or seized check the web of the wishbone carefully for cracking as well. Dont forget to add a coup"e of drops of Loctite 'Super Wick-in' to the threads of the pinion nut while the bevelbox is off.

Wholeheartedly agree, I only made it through about half way and had to get up to have a shit.........

I may be wrong but I think the V11 lid and the Cali 1100 lid are the same item. Check numbers but I think they're identical.

Remove the intake snorkel on a Griso and it makes a perfectly satisfactory intake honk. Mapped correctly you'll also get a tiny bit more bottom end and midrange.

Yup. DeTomasso sold them in various markets under various brand names. I even know of one from Singapore that was badged as a Motobi! I had a mate who used one for regularity runs. It was a hoot. Just nail the throttle in fifth and never touch the brakes! They made zero torque so the only way to make progress on them was to wring their tiny necks! The clocks were in a panel on the tank, (Visible in the pic.) which made getting the tank off an enormous pain in the arse! I nearly bought one in the '90's. I'm so glad I didn't!

Almost certainly, but there is a V7 thread on ADV that is active and useful. While I'm hoping to be riding my Grisos and Mana for a few more years my body is telling me those days are numbered and for that reason I'm looking at a V7 for down the track. Only a V7-II. Last of the Herron head motors, six speed gearbox and the Stone model has cast wheels. Sure the suspension is crap and the brakes only *Adequate* but by the time I'm riding it that will be all I need. When it gets too much I'll get a Vespa! Love me some Vespa!

Ride by wire.

I hate them.....

Just remember why the Carabinieri always hang around in threes. They need one who can read, one who can write and one to keep an eye on the two intellectuals!

Nice! Needed a loop and a V100 to round it out. Amazing looking at that, fifty years! The Tonti seems like only yesterday! Fu*k I'm old!

Move the thermistor lower in the tank, simples!

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TDC=Top Dead Centre. It occurs twice in the 720 degree cycle of the motor. Both times the piston is at the top of its stroke it is at TDC but on only one occasion are the tappets on the base circles of the cams and that is when you adjust the clearance.