Anyone dual-plug a V11?

[jrt]

Forte cojones, eh?

 

That's impressive...be sure to send a pic to the 'shrapnel italia' page.

 

Cheers,

Jason

[al_roethlisberger]

Yep, I'll(we'll... Jason and I) will have to no doubt get our timing adjusted.

 

I think the stock ECU on the V11 will be fine though, and with folks like Evoluzione and FIM making software available(so I hear) that can adjust timing as well... we should be able to dial it in. I'll just have to find a shop to take it to.

 

We still have to figure out the coils though. I'd rather not add complexity by having to install relays and such(just something else to break IMHO)... so maybe we can figure out a suitable swap-out replacement for the OEM coils?? I have no idea yet though. We'll just have to see. This is currently my biggest hurdle.

 

At this point, I've forgotten what my bike looked like I think!

 

al

[jtucker]

I was speaking to my mechanic the other day, and he seemed to think that there are already relays powering our coils on the V11S. Not 100% positive. A quick look at the wiring diagram should be able to verify that.

 

I *really* like the idea of the My16M computer. The only problem is that we would still need to find someone with a dyno and an abilty to remap the My16M. Plus, we need to have the My16M modified to account for the internal pressure sensor that is on our stock 15M.

[dlaing]

The Coils are on the same relay as the fuel pump and injectors.

You might get a little more juice if you give the coils their own dedicated 10 gauge line and relay.

But then again it is one more relay to possibly fail.

I have no idea how many amps are being drawn through that relay, but if the aftermarket coils increases it significantly, than it is worth dedicating a seperate fuse, relay, and wire to the coils, or to the pump and injectors, whichever is easier...Relay $10, inline fuse $5, Wire $5, piece of mind.... priceless.

But then again, if it does not blow a fuse, than it will probably be fine.

You guys are going to have some awesome running engines!

[Cliff]

Each coil pulls about 5A. The relays shouldn't have much problem with it as it is only short pulses 3-4ms and the relays are permanently on, they're not switching it.

Worse case current would be 1 spark coil ( 5 or 10A ) and both injectors simultanously ( high RPM and throttle ). Think the injectors are 2-3A each

 

My16M does allow a pressure sensor to be soldered in ( Still untested at this stage but with three active pins I couldn't get it wrong could I? ). That should be all that's required for being a My15M.

[dlaing]

Thanks Cliff.

Any idea of the amperage on the fuel pump?

Also, do you have pricing and other details about your ECU?

Keep up the impressive work

[Cliff]

I think I've seen 6A mentioned somewhere. Either way two etra coils would may little difference to the relay and fuse. The ECU itself may have issues driving the extra load.

 

My site should answer most of your questions. Email if you have any other questions

[al_roethlisberger]

I just got off the phone with Mike Rich today, and after everything is done, the total will be about $1350. Because of some issues with the valves, it's about $200 more than the initial quote.

 

So here are two issues to keep in mind:

 

1) Remember to have the shop send your intake manifolds to him

 

He didn't mention that to me when we were going to ship the heads, but I guess, ummmm "duh" My fault there No big deal though. He said the porting was one of the last things in the process, so if I ship him the intakes "3 day" that should work out just fine

 

2) Apparently MG has used relatively soft valves in our bikes, and had a rather sharp guide. Mike has noticed(and warned me ahead of time) that the OEM valves he's received have worn significantly over relatively minimal mileage. He's seen bikes with 5000 miles with .005 wear, and the guides worn similarly. This is caused by the lateral forces on the valve-stem from the rocker, the guide having a very sharp top edge, and the softness of the valves. He tested the valves and consistently find them to have a "Rockwell-c" hardness of 29.5-30, where in his opinion they should be at least 35.

 

My valves' stems were worn .002 with only about 3000 miles on the clock. While not a big deal yet, one can extrapolate that as this wear gets worse, it will only accelerate, and then the guide and even the boss that the guide fits into will wear out. Result?... oil burning, poor valve-train performance, binding, etc...

 

So, the moral of this story? Keep an eye on the wear of your valve stems and guides, and if you have a chance to change them to a better set, you may want to take that opportunity. Because Mike says every late model Guzzi he's worked on has this valve wear issue.

 

BTW, this added another $160(~$38 per valve) to my bill, as he's installing Rockwell-c Hardness 38, and nitrile coated valves to mine. They should slide easier and last "forever"... more or less

 

I should have the heads back in a week or two at this point

 

al

[jtucker]

Good info about the valves, Al... thanks. My project is going slow, unfortunately... my head that had to be repaired is MIA, but will hopefully be back this week. Then off to Mike...

[al_roethlisberger]

Well, Mike got my heads finished, and they are on their way back to Moto Italiano... here's his report:

 

He is continually "impressed"(sarcasm alert! ) by the lack of consistency and quality of Guzzi parts I think. His words were, "...offically, these were the worst heads[Guzzi] ever..." and it took him an extra three days or so to be able to wrangle the right flow out of them that he was aiming for.

 

He was joking that they must have put an apprentice on my heads as there was so much taken out of the port by the factory that it was nearly impossible to machine it properly. Further, when he dual-plugged the head, casting inconsistencies have proven to make it impossible for him to standardize on a single repeatable process and to have any reasonalby consistent expectations. He makes it work just fine, but each set is a new adventure apparently.

 

Anyway, the good news...

 

He got about 126CFM(125.4/125.7) out of my intake side, from a stock 112 approximately. And the exhausts came out at about 82-84 CFM. The intakes were at the bottom of average(referencing his difficulties porting them above) while the exhausts were on the high side of average for his "Stage II" effort. But then again, he has historically only gotten at best around 130CFM even for "Stage III" race-application porting on the intake side, so it's not a major difference. Plus he said you won't feel the difference between 125 and 130 CFM, but from 112 to 125 CFM will prove a distinct improvement mid-range.

 

He says the general rule-of-thumb is .43HP per CFM gained on the intake. So in general, so we're looking at about 5.8HP potentially from each side, gross. Who knows though. The dyno, and other dependencies will make the final impact and report

 

So, hopefully I'll have the bike back in a week or two, then can get a map for the PCIII... and I can report rear-wheel HP and torque.

 

I'll let you know more once I know more..

 

...and of course, the dual-plugging will be later once we nail-down the coil selection, and I have access to some software that will adjust the timing as well. For the time being, the extra/new plug hole is well.... just "plugged"

 

al

[al_roethlisberger]

Well, the heads are on, and the folks at Moto Italiano said they looked like "first rate" jobs. Although they had to machine one of the studs, which Mike predicted, it was basically a bolt-on job upon their return.

 

Of course now they can't get the bike to run, but that problem was pre-existing upon dropping it off before the head work. The ECU isn't kicking out any codes, and the right cylinder is backfiring so badly it blows the intake boot off! ...glad it's them and not me wrestling with this one now. I gave up back in December. Thank goodness for a warrantee. They've "zeroed out" the ECU and have a call into Guzzi, but so far no dice. They're thinking the TPS or one of the injectors may be flakey. They said my TPS was waaaaay off, set to something like 11mV. hrmm, they're the last ones to set it Ah well, I'm sure they'll get is eventually. I just hope that "eventually" is sooner rather than later.

 

 

I've also posted a couple more feelers out on some lists, and through personal contacts about the "which coil" question for dual-plugging. So far, it still seems that no one has dual-plugged a V11 Sport/LeMans, which in nearly 4 years of production I find hard to believe... but ah well. Maybe Jason and I are trailblazers here No definitive answers yet.

 

 

Jason, BTW... any news on your "lost in transit" head? Spring is here, and Summer is close... Mike's backlog is still 4-6 weeks.... Are you still going to try to get this done this season, or just wait now until Fall/Winter? I'd hate to see your bike down for half the Summer waiting on the heads.

 

But then again, I'd love a partner to commiserate with while we figure out the dual-plug puzzle

 

al

[Cliff]

Any other issues with the bike?

 

I know of a guy whose 1100i regularly deteriorated in performance and was pretty sure one of his injectors was f**ked( firing on one cylinder only). He also had an intermitent tacho problem which seemed unrelated.

 

Turns out the tacho was shorting out and causing the injector problem as unplugging the tacho cured his problem.

[callison]

Pretty weird cliff. That implies that the tach is teed off of the injector drive in the same fashion that the old Guzzis had the tach driven off of one coil. In a word - cheap, it doesn't say much for isolating the ECU from problems caused by external components.

[al_roethlisberger]

As an update, John has posted a more formal description of his dual-plugged Bassa at GuzziTech:

 

Hot Rod Dual-Plugged Bassa

 

 

I believe the Bassa has a different ECU, although the coils should be the same as the V11 Sport varieties(or at least the same specs - primary resistance)?? Anyone?? So his solution should be applicable to ours. According to Jason, the primary resistance of the V11 Sport coils is .7 Ohm.

 

Does anyone have any thoughts on the reliability of having relays control the coils versus the ECU directly? Better/Worse solution?? I typically prefer a KISS(Keep it simple st@pid) approach, but if there's a real advantage to "buffering" the ECU with relays.... although shouldn't one also keep a close eye on the specs of the relays to not fry the ECU with them either??? *sigh*

 

 

I've got an email out to John on more details of which Dyna coils he bought, etc.

 

al

[Cliff]

The relays will produce a kick back voltage but its nothing like the 400V you get off the primary of a coil. You really need to add the capacitor that normal points use or you're going to burn out the relay contacts.

 

I don't see any reason to use relays although it will produce a retarded timing for you. Still you're going to end up with less control of your timing.

 

Reliability is going to be worse.