Some Future Guzzis?

[V11UK]

At last, he's mine .

Even though I'm restricted to 5,000 rpm during the running in process, I've had a lot of fun during my first 166 miles. With good weather for the rest of this Bank Holiday weekend I'll easily complete the 625 miles before the first service on Tuesday .

 

[tikkanen]

At last, he's mine    .

Even though I'm restricted to 5,000 rpm during the running in process, I've had a lot of fun during my first 166 miles. With good weather for the rest of this Bank Holiday weekend I'll easily complete the 625 miles before the first service on Tuesday  .

 

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Congrats with the new Breva 1100!

 

It's a fine looking bike IMHO and I'll definitely look forward to hearing about your riding experiences. My wife (strongly encouraged my yours truly) has also set her eyes on the big Breva and I think we'll have space enough in the garage for a number two...

 

German motorcycle magazine "Motorrad" did a comparison test in the September issue (together with the BMW 1150 and the Yamaha Buldog) and they were quite impressed with the Breva.

The only hiccup was lack of top speed and and no ABS brakes. The Beemer won off course but that's typical "Motorrad": Every time they test a BMW it always gets top marks.

 

Cheers

 

Søren

[TX REDNECK (R.I.P.)]

Well, you had it long enough for a first impression report

[Guest SDKFZ111]

Chad, Keith, and anyone else who's interested. I'm NOT criticizing the product saying it's a bad product. All I'm saying is that I don't think it's enough to claim that it is a 'company saving' or 'brilliant and inovative' new product.

 

I don't personally want a NEW Guzzi for the simple reason that my old ones do exactly what I want. That doesn't mean I don't want to see the company grow, go from strength to strength and build motorbikes as inovative and they did fifty years ago, (albeit then mainly for track use.).

 

What I have always admired about the marque is that they design a basic, class-leading product as a flagship and then develop it, over a period of years (In some case decades.) before abandoning it and producing something entirely new. In the past the company has been able to subsidise the initial design by having a fleet of small, profitable, machines to feed the flagships. Alas, this is no longer the case, (although re-badging some Piagio scooters with the Guzzi name would I'm sure pay a healthy divident to the firm!) but at the end of the day there are a dwindling number of people who are going to be willing to shell out what are conspicuously big amounts of money on the venerable, air cooled, big twin; especially when the design has been taken to the point where the extracted power is compromising it's longevity!

 

While I dislike the looks of the Breva and the Griso I accept that my likes and dislikes are completely irelevant, I'm not a prospective purchaser. What I do think is foolish is if Piagio or anyone else tries to claim that either of the models are 'Great White Hopes' that will re-launch Guzzi as a major player in the market place they are either kidding themselves or are incredibly poorly advised!

 

As Keith said, although applied to me   'Move on' I'm dying for the company to do so! While the VA10 is probably a dead duck, something very similar has to be the way to go. A 750-1,000cc transverse V with water-cooling, compact, light and coupled with a shaft drive to offer performance similar to one of those 'orrible oil-head bimmers, modern suspension and a basic platform onto which various 'Styles' could be grafted and built at a green-field site somewhere on the plains, (Sorry guys, Mandello won't work!) and they'd have a sure fire winner. Add in a series of sensible, cheap, eco-friendly scooters and commuters all bearing the Falcon and I reckon the company could go gangbusters.

 

Believe me, I'm not anti-progress, or anti-Guzzi. What I am is anti-bullshit and anti-fantasist! As long as the Breva and Griso are as well built and reliable as I, and all of us, hope they will be, then I'll be at the front of the queue cheering 'em on. But they are, as I'd hoped the V11 would be, a stop-gap and filler at best. I don't want the Falcon to sit on a twig scratching it's beak with a tallon! I want it to SHRIEK as it stoops on it's prey, (Most notably those awful bloody oil-head bimmers!!!!! How can they sell so many of those dreadful things? They're like riding a damp sponge????)

Pete

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[callison]

I've got the funds set aside from my retirement for the new Breva. Unfortunately, I live in the USA... Thank you California , for setting the Breva 1100 arrival back by months for a fuel overflow re-design.

[Guest Nogbad]

Hope that little rubber concertina boot on the top of the new drive assembly is made of a good quality polymer. It occurs to me that if it splits, then the sensitive bevel drive assembly would fill up with grit and rainwater within 5 miles.

[helicopterjim R.I.P.]

And I would like a Griso with a fairing and clip-ons.......With 4v engine

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Me anche!!!

[Guest Nogbad]

I saw a really nice V10 Centauro the other day. Why did Guzzi not persevere with the 4 valve heads? Going back to the 2V was surely a retrograde step.

 

Also, many years ago I test rode a cheap used 350cc trail styled Guzzi. Never seen another, and I wish I could remember what it was, I didn't buy it, but wished I had for a while afterwards. It had square barrels like a V50, but long travel enduro forks.

[Guest ratchethack]

Why did Guzzi not persevere with the 4 valve heads? Going back to the 2V was surely a retrograde step.

It's a very good question that I'd like to see answered by somebody who really knows the 4V engines. From what I gather, the "high cam" design is just too fundamentally limited from an engineering standpoint relative to conventional SOHC or DOHC designs. Just thinking about it, how long can you make rockers without prohibitive flex &/or reciprocating mass, to name one of many inherent limitations? It also appears to be much more costly to build in proportion to the marginally higher output it was able to achieve over the 2V. The simpler design, greater reliability, and lower cost of the 2V clearly has it's own significant advantages.

 

Just speculation, but it appears to me that the "hi-cam" may have suffered from a lack of development effort, or that (more likely) the cost-benefit returns simply began to diminish very early on. They seem to have a variety of reliability and tuning problems, although "insiders" have apparently come up with a variety of halfway decent fixes.

 

So what IS the real skinny on the 4V engine?

 

I've always wondered why Guzzi never came up with a much simpler and lower-cost 4V pushrod design using the standard in-block cam location. This would appear to have been a plausible design path at some point??

[pete roper]

There were a number of reasons not only for it's demise but also for it's enormously long gestation period. Originally it was supposed to be ready in the late eighties but one of the biggest problems they had was with heat cracking the heads. The engine was originally designed a track challenger and while they were OK in race conditions where there was a large flow of air over 'em in the less hospitable environs of theroad they used to crack. It took ages for a suitable alloy to be developed that would take the heat, (literally.) with suitable expansion characteristics. Hi Cams are still prone to cracking heads though!

 

The greatest reason for it's demise is cost. The Hi Cam costs about $2,200 more per unit than the old pushrod lump. It's also heavier, more complex and produces little more power, (although it delivers it in a completely different way.)

 

In fact the rocker ratio on the Hi-Cams is considerably better than on the pushrod machines. about 3 to rather than the 1.1 to 1 of the pushrod donk, but the loadings on the small adjusters can cause failures if lash caps aren't fitted to the valves, (They were on later models ex-factory.) and over-revving will still snap rockers like rotten carrots.

 

The smallblock Lario and it's sibblings used a pushrod 4V head. Apart from reliability problems using pushrods and OHV operation negates one of the great benefits of using a multi valve format, that of greatly reduced valve train weight. Two smaller valves not only have a greater surface area than one large one but they weigh, (or should do!) considerably less as well.

 

Riding a 'C' kitted Hi-Cam is one of the most awesome, spine tingling experiences I know of in motorcycling. Up to about 4,750rpm the thing will cough and splutter and runs like a dog, for abut the next 500rpm it seems to smooth out but nothing much happens but suddenly, at about 5,500-5,750 the induction note and exhaust noise drop by a full octave, the back end suddenly goes rigid, and the horizon starts coming towards you at a thoroughly indecent rate. A Daytona ridden like this is a truly raw, exciting, motorcycle. The big problem is that very, very few people actually want something that raw and visceral. Most folks want their speed and acceleration delivered with a bland and antiseptic smoothness. A machine like a 'C' kitted Daytona is simply too confrontational and demanding.

 

The Hi-Cam is a wonderful thing, if you like that sort of thing, but it was, even at the time of it's inception, a dinosaur, an evolutionary dead-end. Overtaken and left behind before it ever made it to the street it remains, in my opinion, the last, great, stand of the 'Biggus Dickus', hairy-chested, air cooled motorbike engine. An engine that lets you know you're riding a large, powerful machine and none of the others really want to @#!#$# with you! The fact that in real terms it is not very powerful and, as mentioned, it is far from civilized is completely irrelevant! It's the sort of engine that goes in a motorbike ridden by the sort of people who little old ladies and small children are scared of and who have to be careful not to tread on the end of their willies in the shower . They're fantastic, but they're gone, and we will, I'm afraid, never see their like again, (To parraphrase Flan O'Brien.)

 

Pete

[Guest ratchethack]

Apart from reliability problems using pushrods and OHV operation negates one of the great benefits of using a multi valve format, that of greatly reduced valve train weight. Two smaller valves not only have a greater surface area than one large one but they weigh, (or should do!) considerably less as well.

Thanks Pete. Roger the pushrod 4V head design negating some of the advantage of the greatly reduced reciprocating mass of DOHC and SOHC 4V designs, but I can't quite square your 2 sentences above. Have I missed something? Since 2 smaller pushrod operated valves have lower mass (or should have) than one, wouldn't a pushrod 4V design with superior flow characteristics also be superior to a pushrod 2V design (manufacturing costs notwithstanding)? If so, why was the Lario configuration not carried over into the big blocks?

[callison]

The Lario was a faulty design and it's unreliability was an embarrasment for Guzzi. I think the Ippogrifo would have had a version of that engine too. Perhaps that's part of the reason that particular bike never made it to production.

[pete roper]

Sorry, I wasn't clear. Yes, there will still be advantages but they won't be as great with a pushrod type design as with an OHC type or even a 'Cam in Head' type like the 4V big blocks.

 

Essentially the 4V heads used on the Hi Cams were a cheap option that didn't require any redesigning of major components, (Incidentally I'll believe that Guzzi have a truly NEW big engine the day the rear main bearing doesn't carry the same part# as the one for the 1967 V7 ) it's simply a bolt on the top job of the same old case etc. with a spiffy belt drive off the old camshaft.

 

Why was the lario type system not carried over to the big blocks? I have no idea, although I have always had a sneaking suspicion that the factory used to see the smallblock as the 'Way Forward' rather than the aged big-block design. Perhaps they weren't expecting to still be building the horrible old shitheaps long enough to make it worthwhile. Perhaps they saw the Hi Cam configuration as a better bet? who knows????

 

Incidentally a German company called CSS made some 4V pushrod heads, there is one bloke in Sydney who has two bikes with them on. They are MURDER on cams and pushrods, at least they are until you change the valve springs for something a bit softer, and don't really seem to go much harder than a 2V motor but they do have some technical interest.

 

Pete

[V11UK]

Well, you had it long enough for a first impression report 

58870[/snapback]

 

Been busy riding .......

 

I had the first service done yesterday, having completed 692 miles since collecting the bike on Saturday. First impressions are very favourable .

 

The comfort and overall feel of the bike is spot-on. I'm 6ft 3" and don't feel cramped on the Breva as I do on the V11 over long distances. I can see myself using this bike for all my long distance trips - it really is that comfortable.

 

The engine feels smooth with torque in all the right places under the 5,000 rpm break-in limit. Once I've covered a few thousand miles the gearbox will feel better in the lower gears, its just a bit clunky at the moment. The Breva's 6-speed unit feels completely different to the V11's - more like a late model twin cylinder BMW.

 

Quality is light-years ahead of the early V11 models - its hard to believe that the same factory made it.

 

More to follow when I return from the Italy trip. That will be a good test of the new bike.

[Guzzirider]

Out of interest, this months edition of Classic Bike magazine has a reasonable write up of the 1100 Breva.

 

Guy