"Le Mans Sleeper" V11 in Tonti frame

[4corsa]

I know Mr. Roper will lose sleep over a Tonti frame being used for this project, but to each his own. This build is deserving of the Tonti, and so is the engine:

https://www.bikeexif.com/moto-guzzi-v11-tonti-frame

 

 

Sent from my SM-S901U using Tapatalk

 

 

[docc]

No sleep to loose. That is not a V11 LeMans/Sport motor/drivetrain.  Let's say it's a V11 "EV" or "Cali" square fin with a 5speeder gearbox and not our reardrive.

So, someone made a slumpy croozer-goozzee into a café ride.  (A VERY nice one, I would say!)

No Spine Frames were harmed in this . . . 

[audiomick]

I noticed this sentence in the text:

Quote

with continuous advice from Moto Guzzi tuning legend Peter Horvath

If the bloke actually listened and acted upon Peter's advice, the bike is likely to be very good. I've not had any significant contact with Peter, having only bought a couple of bits off him a couple of months back as he was clearing out his workshop. He is, however, literally a Legend in the German speaking Guzzi world.

[pete roper]

It's a bastardised Tonti with some sort of squarefin 2V motor in it. So what? These things are like locusts.

I used to love a 'Cafe' Tonti, but they have become, like this unit, 'Cookie Cutter' items bought from a catalog just the same as any 'Screamin' Eagle' Harley. OK, the aftermarket suppliers may be independent, unlike the 'Screamin' Eagle' catalog suppliers but it's the same thing.

They may well be 'Independent Builds' but they are all terribly boring and formulaic. The naked frame triangle, or coy copy of a V7 Sport tool box. The battery under the gearbox. The clip ons and rearsets. The absence of any suggestion of practicality and funniest of all, these things often are based on old roundfins and they STILL wear shitty 30mm VHB carburettors!

 

What do these idiots not get about the name they adopt 'Cafe'? OK, that sort of has some sort of oddball reference to a mad cult in the south of England sixty plus years ago. Perhaps if you stretch the point you could say that an engine and frame that didn't go into production between ten and fifteen years after the 'Cafe Racer' thing could be made to look relevant but basically it's a load of tiresome, irrelevant, wank! But then they don't do anything to increase the performance! So where in the name of holy F*ck is the 'Racer' part of the equation???

Look, I'm glad these people have built these things and they make them happy. At the end of the day though fawning over them is like wanking to AI porn.

YOMV.

(PS, I have a picture, not a good one, that I can't post on this site of a much younger me with my little green hot-rod. It looks like a T3 but it made 81 rear wheel BHP out of 891cc. It torched its big ends frequently because to make that I had to rev it to 10,000 indicated by the Veglia. It was stuffed full of twenty years experimentation and a lot of money. Then I bought an 1100 Griso which made a bit less power but did EVERYTHING better and didn't blow up regularly. @#!#$# 'Cafe Racers'!)

[4corsa]

I don't know how you can claim nothing was done to increase performance - did you miss this part?

"It now sports a lightened flywheel, a high-torque camshaft, bigger intake valves, a dual ignition, and a pair of 41 mm Dell’Orto carbs. Paul also redesigned the engine ventilation and oil separation systems, and installed an expanded sump and CNC-machined oil pump"

Sent from my SM-S901U using Tapatalk

[pete roper]

Yeah, yeah. The same stuff that everybody does. Most, if not all, available 'Off the shelf!

A lightened flywheel? A 'High Torque' cam? So a mm ground off the base circle of the 'Lawnmower' cam or perhaps a B10 or P3 type grind?

Twin plugging? Vital with such a shitty combustion chamber design. Even the facory did it at the end.

The oil condensor system has to be improved over the system used on Low Head Tonti's or they puke their oil out and run their mains.

None of this is exceptional and has been common practice and well known for forty or more years! And boring out a set of PHM's to 41mm? Wow! Colour me bored!

As I said, I'm glad the people who build these things are happy but the Oooh-ing and Ahh-ing is laughable and makes me want to puke! But that's me. I'm not the arbiter of your or anyone else's taste. I am though entitled to my opinion and being an irascible old bastard I'm more than happy to state it!

[4corsa]

I just think you should actually read the article before you go off on another one of your long-winded anti custom cafe racer rants. Besides the engine and suspension upgrades, it's certainly better looking than any equally uncomfortable sportbike you can buy off the showroom floor these days, including any of the recent V7 iterations.

Sent from my SM-S901U using Tapatalk

[Joe]

2 hours ago, pete roper said:

It's a bastardised Tonti with some sort of squarefin 2V motor in it. So what? These things are like locusts.

I used to love a 'Cafe' Tonti, but they have become, like this unit, 'Cookie Cutter' items bought from a catalog just the same as any 'Screamin' Eagle' Harley. OK, the aftermarket suppliers may be independent, unlike the 'Screamin' Eagle' catalog suppliers but it's the same thing.

They may well be 'Independent Builds' but they are all terribly boring and formulaic. The naked frame triangle, or coy copy of a V7 Sport tool box. The battery under the gearbox. The clip ons and rearsets. The absence of any suggestion of practicality and funniest of all, these things often are based on old roundfins and they STILL wear shitty 30mm VHB carburettors!

 

What do these idiots not get about the name they adopt 'Cafe'? OK, that sort of has some sort of oddball reference to a mad cult in the south of England sixty plus years ago. Perhaps if you stretch the point you could say that an engine and frame that didn't go into production between ten and fifteen years after the 'Cafe Racer' thing could be made to look relevant but basically it's a load of tiresome, irrelevant, wank! But then they don't do anything to increase the performance! So where in the name of holy F*ck is the 'Racer' part of the equation???

Look, I'm glad these people have built these things and they make them happy. At the end of the day though fawning over them is like wanking to AI porn.

YOMV.

(PS, I have a picture, not a good one, that I can't post on this site of a much younger me with my little green hot-rod. It looks like a T3 but it made 81 rear wheel BHP out of 891cc. It torched its big ends frequently because to make that I had to rev it to 10,000 indicated by the Veglia. It was stuffed full of twenty years experimentation and a lot of money. Then I bought an 1100 Griso which made a bit less power but did EVERYTHING better and didn't blow up regularly. @#!#$# 'Cafe Racers'!)

Pete,

How about a modern cafe racer based off of a CARC donor bike?

[LowRyter]

@Joe

 

I think Pete has got the 1400 in a CARC bike already covered.  At least for the past 4 or 5 years.  

[audiomick]

3 hours ago, pete roper said:

 being an irascible old bastard I'm more than happy to state it!

Very good that man. Carry on!

 

In fact, I'm of a similar opinion to a large degree.

Spending heaps to make an old bike unreliably almost achieve the performance of a newer one is questionable.

With that which is called "cafe racer" these days, as you say, what have those bikes actually got to do with those stripped down brit bikes that they are named after? Mostly nothing. The essence of a cafe racer is remove anything that is not absolutely necessary to save weight, and put some clip-ons on it because that is what race bikes have. If there is any money available, it goes in to making the bike faster, not making it prettier.

Anyway....

 

That particular one mentioned above might really go well. As I said, if the builder really did take Peter Horvath's advice for the motor build.

Here is an article from 2014 about a bike that he was looking after then. According to the article, 121 ps. . Of course they don't write anything about how long it can do that before a re-build... 

Although from what I've read, it seems the final drive was the weak point. His motors were apparently so strong that they ate final drives regularly.

[pete roper]

8 hours ago, Joe said:

Pete,

How about a modern cafe racer based off of a CARC donor bike?

The CARC platforms don't lend themselves to anything like this. The wheelbase is too long so they always look like they've had an unfortunate arse-accident! The exhaust on that thing is absurd, it will be a blubbering mess below 6,000 and then it'll take off like a cut cat for 1,500 rpm before falling flat on its face again. So it's both ugly and ridiculous and we won't even begin to talk about how long the throttlebodies will last with the woeful air filtration.

[pete roper]

9 hours ago, 4corsa said:

I just think you should actually read the article before you go off on another one of your long-winded anti custom cafe racer rants. Besides the engine and suspension upgrades, it's certainly better looking than any equally uncomfortable sportbike you can buy off the showroom floor these days, including any of the recent V7 iterations.

Sent from my SM-S901U using Tapatalk
 

Agree about the V7's. Disagree about modern sportsbikes, some of which are awesome! 
 

Sorry if my long winded rants offend you. Pieces of rolling munt like that offend me.

[audiomick]

38 minutes ago, pete roper said:

Agree about the V7's. Disagree about modern sportsbikes, some of which are awesome!

I reckon some of the modern V7s are quite pretty, but not sports bikes and very much too "sit up and beg". I even test rode a V7 850 a couple of months ago to make sure. Spent the whole ride wondering how hard it would be to fit clip-ons to it.

 

Modern sports bikes: yes, undoubtably wonderful machines. If only they didn't all look like the 8th. or 9th. edition of a transformer movie after the ideas had all run out.

[Art]

The more ugly bikes that are out there, the better mine looks.

I actually like looking at anything built.

[audiomick]

4 minutes ago, Art said:

I actually like looking at anything built.

Well, yes, but only when it's well done. I fully agree with Pete in as much as when I (completely uneducated in vehicle design and construction) can see that some feature(s) are obviously only there because the builder thought that would look cool, I very quickly lose interest.

Bandages on the exhaust headers, for instance.

 

If, however, it seems that everything is done for a functional purpose, yes a custom can be a beautiful thing.

 

Even if it is an antiquated motorcycle that is obviously so extremely hotted up that it cannot possibly be reliable.