Mistral X-over == crappy mid-range?

[Guest dkgross]

Ian, I'll throw in a few bucks if you ride out to the Winters Breakfast next month.

Winters Breakfast? Where?? Seattle? I'm game :>)

 

With my pipes/crossover stock, and the only addition being a PCIII with the stock map, I have barely the slightest dip around 3500-4000 rpm.

 

Then again, I very rarely go SLOWLY through that rpm range

 

 

Hey Ian...I'm going to help Dave at MI out this weekend doing the Demo Ride thing (I've got a few cool routes planned out). It's the big Three Dealer Fun Fest. Moto Int, Ride West (it's also their big Bike Swap weekend), and Eastside Motosports are participating. Dave's got a bunch of bikes coming in from Moto Guzzi specifically for doing demo rides!!!

 

 

Wanna help?

[Guest IanJ]

Well, I gotta admit, I'm with you guys on this "Guzzi good, but not in city" thing. The more I think about it, the more I realize that the Guzzi is the wrong bike for most of my riding. I'm going to get it back to the stock crossover (and the Stucci, if Dave gets one in), and as soon as I can sell the R100 (anyone want a nice-looking, decently running '83 R100S?), I'm gonna find myself a Ninja 250 to commute on. I've been thinking of getting one for years now, and it's just a way more reasonable bike for the riding I mostly do.

 

The Guzzi won't be going away, it's just going to stop being the commute mule. But, this means I now have to find some weekend rides to go on. Anyone doing anything in the Pacific Northwest? I'd love to find a breakfast/brunch/lunch to go to that was 50-100 miles out of Seattle, or a day ride of a Saturday. Where is this Winters breakfast of which you speak?

 

Oh, and my take on aftermarket exhaust, PC, etc. modifications: the bike is already plenty powerful and makes me very happy to ride (particularly when I'm not thinking about the gas mileage), why should I spend another X hundred or X thousand dollars making it "better?" I'm honestly slightly offended that it should be necessary to purchase an aftermarket accessory (the PCIII) to make the bike run like it was supposed to from the factory. It's not that I can't afford the modifications, it's that I'm not willing to make them. However, I'm glad they're around so that other people who want more from the bike can get it -- this is a cool bike and deserves to be ridden and come to great success in the market. If aftermarket mods help that happen, then yay!

[al_roethlisberger]

Indeed ...something like a Ninja 250, an "old" early 90's Yamaha SecaII, a Nighthawk, etc .... all come to mind for an economy commuter. Any of these can be had for $1500-2500 in great shape. Plus since you can get any of these so darned cheap, you won't care if it get's dinged up, etc... and that's very liberating and eases the stress of urban riding

 

 

In regards to "requiring" more performance or amendments to the OEM ECU with a PCIII... you are correct on all fronts. The V11 Sport varieties have plenty of power, honestly. 80hp at the rear wheel is nothing to sneeze at, and the torque is really what sets it apart as well. While there are a plethora of other bikes, mostly Japanese, that produce in excess of 100hp at the rear wheel, it's certainly not necessary... and as we all know, what really counts is torque and where in the RPM range that power-band/sweet-spot really lies. If that ~100hp is only attainable at stratospheric RPM, well, that's not terribly usable in the real world. ..again, IMHO.

 

So, sure one can and should leave well enough alone if you are happy with the more than adequate performance of the bike. And while the PCIII can arguably remedy some OEM glitches, my opinion is that if there were more dealers/service-centers that knew how(had the tools) to properly tune/map the stock ECU in all dimensions, and not just CO/fuel-air without a dyno.... we'd have much less need for a PCIII, as the 15M is not a bad ECU at all.

 

However, in my case... I just like to tinker And there certainly is a price to be paid, both in $$ and availability(my bike has been out of service for how long now?? ) But I think that for many of us, adding exhausts, PCIIIs, x-overs, bars, lights, horns, etc... it's just plain fun to personalize the bike, and tinker. So I wouldn't perceive our addiction for "gear" as a requirement for these bikes to run acceptably(I know you don't ) ...it's more that many of us just like to break what ain't broke at times

 

Especially in the case with the PCIII, even if my point above were remedied tomorrow and every Guzzi shop could properly tune/remap the ECU, there would still be a hoard of people wanting the PCIII because they can tinker with the map in their own garage ...this may change though when people like Evoluzione soon offer software that you can run on your Palm-Pilot that can directly interface with the OEM ECU. We'll see.

 

al

[Guest Jaap]

Has anybody got the link to the Dynocharts of th Stucchi and Mistral x-overs? I know I saw them somewhere...

[dlaing]

Has anybody got the link to the Dynocharts of th Stucchi and Mistral x-overs? I know I saw them somewhere...

http://www.manleycycle.com/Tech.htm#MotoGuzzi

The website was missing tech reports for a while, but seems to be in order again.

I wish they would do some more exhaust dynos.

[Guest Jaap]

Thanks! I needed the link for a German V11 rider on their V11 forum

[dlaing]

has anyone dyno'd an aftermarket crossover with stock mufflers?

If you had before and after results, that would be interesting.

[RacerX]

 

Stock V11S with stock crossover & stock muffs in blue, and the same with only a Mistral x-over change in red. I do not have a Stucchi comparo with stock muffs to show.

I now have well over 100 different dyno runs for most V11S' combos otherwise.

Thanks to everyone that have been sending them along.

 

Todd@GuzziTech.com

[docc]

However, I'm glad they're around so that other people who want more from the bike can get it -- this is a cool bike and deserves to be ridden and come to great success in the market. If aftermarket mods help that happen, then yay!

Purportedly, one of the original design directives of the Sport 1100 was that it be a tuner's bike. A platform for customization. Look at the Ducati Monster. Is it the longest production run of any Ducati ever? A platform for personalization.

 

I am so hoping the V11s/LM is the "Monster of Mandello." A sound ,long running platform for each of us to personalize, hot-rod, breath on and otherwise soup-up. Parked side-by-side the three or four silver V11 Sports I know of have grown to be nothing like one another.

 

These V11's, perhaps the Sports more so, epitomise the quintessential cafe rocker theme of the early ton-up scene.

[dlaing]

Thanks for the post Todd!

Now I feel better about my muffler

It is an interesting compromise, that many riders will prefer.

[Janusz]

I do not care what the dyno run pictures show. I am also sure that a lot depends on the operator..

 

The reason I say that is this: I have stock mufflers (just drilled a little), Stucci X-over and open airbox. After replacing stock X-over with Stucci the max. speed of the bike INCREASED by 7/8 km/hr and that can only mean one thing for sure:

The top power did increase.

You do not need dyno to know that.

[dlaing]

I do not care what the dyno run pictures show.

The Stucchi is very different than the mistral.

From the dynos that I have seen of the Stucchi I believe your seat of the "assessment"

I know you don't care, but here is a comparison from Manley Motorcycles.

The bikes compared are different so I suspect the Stucchi's curve would actually be equal to the stock crossover in everyway with a significant mid range boost. So just add one or two HP across the board for the Stucchi.

Other riders comments on the Stucchi parallel your comments, so I think the adjusment to the graph is warranted.

This compares the Stucchi with I think Mistrals to the Mistral crossovers with Agostinis(which should be the same as the Mistral mufflers)(but I might have that backwards regarding which is which...)

[Janusz]

I really did not intend to offend you Dave and if I did then I am sorry for that.

 

All I wanted to say was that irrespectable what any dyno would show I was sure that X-over increases horsepower. I am sure that dyno is an useful instrument but sometimes a more simple approach is enough.

 

I also think you're right that Mistral might be different then Stucci. But why? All the aftermarket X-over does is eliminates restriction/muffler and improves flow.

 

By the way, in Stucci box I found their dyno graph showing improvement everywhere. I did not trust it also and preferred doing my own measurements .

[dlaing]

Absolutely no offense taken.

Also, no offense was meant with the use of the word assessment. I was just playing with the seat of the pants dyno concept. I should be more careful with these words....

And I brain farted and should have written, ' From the dynos that I have seen of the Stucchi I believe your seat of the pants "assessment"' not, 'From the dynos that I have seen of the Stucchi I believe your seat of the "assessment".'

Maybe you did not even notice...anyway, a lame pun.

And you are correct about dynos, I don't disagree.

I just get a kick out of seeing the dyno graphs and seeing what all the options for our bikes can do.

If your bike's top speed increases or your quarter or half mile times increase or you are all of a sudden pulling wheelies, you know you got a power increase.

My bikes dyno result shows power similar to the mistral stock combo, but I can still get the bike to do over an indicated 130mph,(not down hill or down wind) which is fast enough for me.

I guess it is fast enough, but it would be nice to get up closer to 140 veglia miles per hour.

Although there is nothing worse than a bike whose top speed is regulated by the redline and not the power. On my V65SP I was once following a Corvette and an FJ1100 down the MacDonald-Cartier Freeway heading from Toronto to Kingston. I had modified the speedo so that it would not pin, and we were going just below my redline for a couple minutes, but when we hit a down grade they pulled away from me <_ if i had only a sixth gear could have kept up. my v65 was an abnormally fast or so believed. mods were bubs and k pods but it would get up to redline in fifth pretty effortlessly. its life went by too.>

[Dirtybill]

Roads around the Seattle area?

 

Tons of them!!!! Mt. St. Helens- "Windy Ridge Road". The road from Cougar to Randle.

 

Highway 9 to the Canadian border. Highway 20 to Winthrop.

 

Olympic Penninsula, then Chuckanut drive to Bellingham.

 

South Skagit Highway. It runs parallel to Highway 20 on the south side of Skagit river.

 

Lots more on the Canadian side of the border which is only 120 miles from Seattle.