WTB - Centauro

[Kremmen]

Seeking a Centauro. Am in Perth, Western Australia. Ideal bike is tatty but sound, would consider restorable wreck.

[Lucky Phil]

19 hours ago, Kremmen said:

Seeking a Centauro. Am in Perth, Western Australia. Ideal bike is tatty but sound, would consider restorable wreck.

Got deep pockets have you?

Ciao

[Kremmen]

I wouldn't say that exactly, deep enough though. More that I'm after a project bike and I don't want to hack up a nice one.

[Twin AH]

Well I finally found mine ....... they are everything and more than what I expected IMHO

Wishing you luck on your quest.

 

Ciao

[Lucky Phil]

On 9/21/2020 at 1:36 AM, Kremmen said:

I wouldn't say that exactly, deep enough though. More that I'm after a project bike and I don't want to hack up a nice one.

Its just be aware that there are a few mechanical issues you need to address with the Centauro engine that are costly and need to be done to save it from total destruction at some point.

So the oil pump needs to be replaced and the alloy cam and oil pump gears are must do items. The gears have a nasty habit of failing and the oil pump stops and then the big ends fail. The oil pump was never fitted with a proper bushing for the gear shaft and wears badly. The V11 pump and chain drive are the most economical option. The Joe Caruso steel gears and oil pump are the "gold standard" fix.

As a guide if I was buying a 50,000klm old Centi I'd be budgeting on needing to spend a minimum of around $2000 USD on the engine in parts if its still stock standard and has been well maintained. It will still be running fine but as I said the oil pump and cam drive need to be updated and the lifters will all be failing at that mileage and they are around $230usd each.

My total engine rebuild doing all the work myself has probably cost around 8 to $10,000 USD in new parts collected over a 10 year period. That's the reality of it.

Ciao 

 

[docc]

I've always wondered, are the Centauro and Daytona motors identical?

[Lucky Phil]

On 9/23/2020 at 12:42 PM, docc said:

I've always wondered, are the Centauro and Daytona motors identical?

Pretty much docc. The first Daytona engines didn't have the Carrillo rods and had different pistons a slightly heavier crank and the P8 ecu. Then all the Centauros and the later Daytonas, including the RS's had the Carrillos, later pistons and the 16M ecu. The only difference between the the Centauros and later NON Singapore, Swiss and US versions was different hotter cams. The Centauro's and Swiss,US and Singapore Datyona RS's were identical spec.

Ciao 

 

[Kremmen]

8 hours ago, Twin AH said:

Well I finally found mine ....... they are everything and more than what I expected IMHO

Wishing you luck on your quest.

Thank you! It looks like I will need it, they're not exactly thick on the ground lately. Last time I saw a Centauro for sale in Oz was longer ago than the last RS I saw, namely 2015 (when, if memory serves, there were three. Though a really nice-looking Daytona Racing came up today via a dealer. No. 100 of 100 made and fairly low kms, but they want a fair chunk of change for it.)

7 hours ago, Lucky Phil said:

As a guide if I was buying a 50,000klm old Centi I'd be budgeting on needing to spend a minimum of around $2000 USD on the engine in parts if its still stock standard and has been well maintained. It will still be running fine but as I said the oil pump and cam drive need to be updated and the lifters will all be failing at that mileage and they are around $230usd each.

My total engine rebuild doing all the work myself has probably cost around 8 to $10,000 USD in new parts collected over a 10 year period. That's the reality of it.

Absolutely. Mario says much the same. I'm okay with that, actually I'm some way in in parts already without even a bike to show for it as yet. Much appreciate your advice though.

Re oiling I do plan to go Caruso (do I recall someone - perhaps you? - saying the V11 pump's flow rate is lower?) I'd have the parts on order already but that I don't have the bike/engine itself yet. I might get lucky and find one already done, stranger things happen. 

Cheers!

[Weegie]

3 hours ago, Kremmen said:

Re oiling I do plan to go Caruso (do I recall someone - perhaps you? - saying the V11 pump's flow rate is lower?) I'd have the parts on order already but that I don't have the bike/engine itself yet. I might get lucky and find one already done, stranger things happen. 

Cheers!

That was probably me Kremmen, I've got a HiCam engine that was/is overheating. Anyway I posted about the travails on this thread

https://www.v11lemans.com/forums/index.php?/topic/21884-hicam-oil-pressure-gross-stupidity-and-why-you-should-always-listen-to-chuck/

It may have been there as I made that statement on that thread

Due to all the research I did, while basically going down the wrong road, I was frequently in correspondence with Joe Caruso and that was where the information came from

If the gear pump output is linear with RPM and gear rotor length similarily linear to pump output, then the lower flowrate is significant, although I've never heard of anybody who did this mod report problems...............however very few owners install pressure gauges and I have no idea what sort of mileage or how many of these mods have been completed.

The V11/MGS conversion will have the oil pump running close to 10% slower and the V11 pump rotor length is almost 25% less than the OEM Daytona/Centauro parts.

Apart from the Caruso gear and pump mod

My advice is install an oil pressure gauge (and some method monitoring oil temp doesn't hurt either). Make sure that the pressure relief valve is opening at the correct pressure (they nearly all don't) and that its sealing when shut. As far as lubrication these engines need a stupid amount of oil to the heads and the 2 big weak points are the oil pump and the relief valve.

On the relief valve and low pressure a friend is putting a HiCam back into service and I urged him to put a gauge on.

What he found was the relief leaking badly and his pressure (cold oil) was 28psi idle normally they will show 50psi and even that's is reallly too low.

With no gauge he'd have probably have been out running around thinking all was great as the warning light wouldn't trigger (although it may have once the engine was up to temp). I do wonder how long though the engine would have lasted like that and the amount it could have potentially cost him. Yet I still get owners telling me that a gauge is waste of time and doesn't tell you s**t.........................each to their own I suppose

[Kremmen]

Yes of course it was, thanks Weegie. I was watching your new vid last night. Good stuff. The range of variation your gauge shows should give anyone pause - a lower flow rate plus no idea what's going on in a motor known for expensive fragility, no thanks, Caruso + gauge it is. Coming into 4Vs at this stage it'd be daft not to act on the info that's available. So ta!

PS when I got my Sport i it was a dealer demo with a discount as they were going out of business. They had an RS too and I nearly jumped for that instead. If I had I'd have had bigger bills for sure; I'd have taken things for granted for that bit too long.

[Lucky Phil]

55 minutes ago, Kremmen said:

Yes of course it was, thanks Weegie. I was watching your new vid last night. Good stuff. The range of variation your gauge shows should give anyone pause - a lower flow rate plus no idea what's going on in a motor known for expensive fragility, no thanks, Caruso + gauge it is. Coming into 4Vs at this stage it'd be daft not to act on the info that's available. So ta!

PS when I got my Sport i it was a dealer demo with a discount as they were going out of business. They had an RS too and I nearly jumped for that instead. If I had I'd have had bigger bills for sure; I'd have taken things for granted for that bit too long.

Well I dont agree with running an oil pressure gauge. John and I have done plenty of research on this now and in my view we have a workable outcome. With the Griso spring you get around 75psi hot oil pressure maximum and idle pressure of around what,32psi hot on 15W-50 oil. The hot maximum is plenty now and the hot idle pressure also has plenty of head room as well ( considering 10 psi at idle is actually all you need). We now have a greatly uprated pump, driven by steel gears which should allay any reliability issues. So John has done a brilliant job with this with a great outcome with plenty of pressure head room at both ends and what should be a bullet proof oiling system. Great, I see no need for an oil pressure gauge now the LOP light is all that's needed. A LOP gauge is just another failure point and distraction in my view. My bike runs significantly less pressure than Johns engine currently and I'm totally comfortable running with just a light. Pretty much every motorcycle made and the vast majority of cars use a light only. 

There comes a point where you can get tied up with to much information. Oil temperature is a more important matter to look at I think esp in hot ambient traffic conditions. 

Ciao

 

[Weegie]

Perhaps you're correct Phil, it's a personal thing and specific to these engines. It's a backup to the rather unreliable pressure switch, known to fail. I rarely monitor the gauge on a ride, its just something I glance at from time to time, or if something else occurs (like the pressure light illuminating) to provide me with a little more information.

Maybe my poor tech skills, but over the years I've found the gauge useful from time to time.

A compromise would be to install a temporary hook up to monitor pressure for the shakedown runs and then remove it.

Vive La Difference

John

[Lucky Phil]

2 hours ago, Weegie said:

Perhaps you're correct Phil, it's a personal thing and specific to these engines. It's a backup to the rather unreliable pressure switch, known to fail. I rarely monitor the gauge on a ride, its just something I glance at from time to time, or if something else occurs (like the pressure light illuminating) to provide me with a little more information.

Maybe my poor tech skills, but over the years I've found the gauge useful from time to time.

A compromise would be to install a temporary hook up to monitor pressure for the shakedown runs and then remove it.

Vive La Difference

John

Yes John that's my position, use the gauge to set the system up and then remove it. The switch should be a "hard time" replaceable item not a soft time. Its a $15 switch and shouldn't be expected to last 20+ years. Just like a lot of aircraft components are replaced at a specific hours I think there is an argument for the same for the LOP switch.

Ciao    

[Weegie]

One more thing I put rather clumsily was in the tale of the 28psi idle pressure and the statement "50psi and even that's is really too low" when referring to cold idle presssure.

10psi at idle is more than enough, what I was trying to get across was on cold oil idle the relief valve is partially lifting/leaking and the setpoint that should be on the valve is 70psi, however they all lift early and idle at 50psi. Revving the engine will raise the pressure, choking the valve. I reckon It rises to a bit over 60psi at 3k rpm but I don't know if the pressure rises any higher than that. From what I've seen from the short Griso spring test I suspect not.

As I also have a Sporti I swapped the internals of the sport pipework into the HiCam to test, when I could not understand why I was getting low pressure at idle. The results I saw when cranking were identical, I actually started to question my sanity and repeated the whole thing twice as I could not believe the results were identical. Both valves showed the same system pressure of 50psi. The Sport engine's relief valve pressure is around 1 bar lower, Guzzi quote 56-60psi for the 2 valve engines and 70psi (no tolerance) for the 4 valve.

Then I checked the parts book, well, well, well identical components including the spring in both valves....................Go figure. I believe the intention was to shim the spring to obtain a higher relief pressure for the HiCams. They either weren't shimmed in the factory or the spring rate so soft as to make no difference to the observed oil pressure.

The lower pressure seen when the valve lifts on the HiCam is due to the large oil flow to the heads, dropping the pressure dramatically. When that same relief valve is used in the 2 V/V bike it will idle circa 65psi cold oil.

I can only surmise that due to the rushed design and pressure (bad pun) to get a bike out the door with more horses, very little thought went into the design which, as a result meant the system just didn't work the way Guzzi envisaged.

[Pat]

$18000

super low km

yellow