All Activity

Ah, found the info on WG. First thing to check, as suggested, would be the plug caps. Get it in a darkened garage and take the plug lead covers off. Start the bike and look and listen for the spark *Snapping* to earth at the rocker cover. Even if you can’t see it you should be able to hear it. When you last serviced it, how did you remove the plug caps? If yo pried, pulled or levered them from above you will almost certainly of damaged them. They tend to tear at the right angle where the cap turns to meet the lead. Once that has happened it doesn’t take long for the spark to start earthing out. It may not happen immediately though so don’t be surprised if it started mid ride. The way to remove the caps on the 1200-8V’s is to get a long, thin, flat bladed screwdriver and insert it through the cooling tunnel in the head just above the exhaust manifold. Poke around and you’ll feel the rubber of the cap. Hook the tip of the screwdriver under the bottom of the cap and lever it up, off the plug. Once it has unclipped from the top of the plug, then, and only then, do you pull it up from above. The excessive fuel use and unburnt fuel smell will be from the uncombusted fuel passing through the non-firing cylinder. If you are running the original pipe, or an aftermarket one with a catalytic converter, the cat may well of been damaged by the unburnt fuel combusting in the cat. Look for discolouration at the front of the exhaust can. It is very unlikely it is an ecu or mapping problem. The W5AM is pretty much unbreakable and the files can’t corrupt themselves. It will have a physical cause and plug caps are the most likely one.

Hey Pete thx for chiming in......... tried to get ahold of Mark with no avail. I have a bit of response from others over on Wild Goose Chase. At this point its starting ok but when you try and hold a steady rpm from 2k all the way through to about 5K it surges and wanders all over the place.... cant hold steady throttle when at load(moving) either?? Burning fuel like a bugger and smells the part?and is not making much power as I found out having a 100kph roll on with my Brothers stock same year Stelvio... he left me for dead?? Was hoping someone might have had something like happen abruptly to their lump in the past.......... also hoping NOT to randomly starting plowing new parts in it at random in hopes of getting lucky. PS None of the dealers or shops that I have spoke over the years know anything about these machines unfortunately........... for me.

The early Hi-Cams were a morass of frictional losses. That, along with the twin, and too heavy, valve springs, (2 per valve.) and aggressive camming is what made them not only prone to lifter wear but also not nearly as powerful as they were expected to be. Hence the return to the tried and tested 2V Pushrod format. The early engines had belt cam drives at the front of the motor with camshafts that overhung the front bearings by a huge amount, stressing the oil wedge which was already being provided by a barely adequate oil pump. The second generation Hi-Cam has cams driven by chains up the back of cylinders, single beehive valve springs and the lubrication pump is a larger and much more efficient trochoidal Gerotor pump. There is no doubt that the Gen 2 motor is streets ahead of the earlier one. It is a far, far simpler design and considerably more efficient. It should have been the engine that opened a new chapter for Guzzi but the flat tappet fiasco put paid to that. By the time it was sorted out, five years on, the world was already moving on. It took the ‘Full House’ Piaggio V100 engine design to finally deliver what the Hi-Cams couldn’t. It’s just a pity they are just such a boring and unexceptional engine in technical terms. Oh and ugly! F*ck me drunk the V100 is an ugly powerplant! It gives me a headache just looking at it!

High mile Guzzis are suspicious animals. Probably has things like non-factory relays and wires running in funny directions to surprising places.

The 1000S there had over 200,000 miles. Original owner

Also checked the 30A fuse... It was perfect with no degrading whatsoever. I will share results when new battery, and relays are installed

Well it’s actually an EV11 with different skin so not a Lemans anyway. I kinda like the bare nose look. It sure sounded nice with the Staintune exhaust. And the HB hard bags were worth $.

Meh. There's a better one out there. Half of it, the better half, was missing, anyway. One of those needs to have the fairing still on it, and the clip-ons. Otherwise, it's not a Le Mans anymore.

Totally different head and cams than a Griso engine BUT the whole valve system on a Dayton/Centauro engine is still a high wear and marginal system prone to flaking lifters and wearing valve guides at a high rate. A 2 valve reliable engine they are not. Phil

Have you replaced the plugs, leads and plug caps yet? Phil

DOH!!! THNX DOCC LOL

I don’t think Mark posts here. What’s it doing?

The first generation Hi-Cams do not suffer from the same flat tappet issues that affect the later 1200 Hi Cams. They can have tappet issues, but they are not the same. To me this sounds suspiciously like a sudden electrical drop-out. Perhaps caused by vibration or something else. Try running a couple of auxiliary earth cables to the battery negative, including a direct one from the ecu, and bypassing all the strange f*ckery of the standard earth path that probably goes through the pork chops and all sorts of weirdness! Oh, and Pressureangle? If you do buy the Griso make sure it’s been rollerised or is a post-flat tappet model as I’m hearing reports that the factory has ceased production of conversion kits. If this is the case and the bike you are looking at still has flat tappets it will essentially be a paperweight.

Thanks. Later V11 are wired slightly differently than the early Sports. Look carefully at your warning light display. There are separate right and left turn signal indicators? Then there will be no "battery"/charging light. It was omitted on the later V11. Good call on the (major) relay upgrade.

Truly, I quite like the larger font. I would make mine large like yours, if I didn't already know what it says.

Having a few issues with my 2017 Stelvio NTX as of late that may require Mark ( aka Beetle ) Where are you Mark. Regards.

We (company) just went to our bank for a short-term building loan. By the time it was over, I had to decline; I had to put up my *personal* assets against the loan. I told them, 'if I'm a corporation and you're a corporation, and my corporation needs a loan and you're in the business of loaning, and my corporation is viable with cash flow and assets, why should I expose my personal assets? After all, the primary function of incorporating is to separate the two". The response was at it's base, "Government regulations now demand it. We have no discretion". So that's the primary reason Private Equity has gained so much traction and market share. We just went out to PE, showed them our prospectus for the new building, and got the money. Simple papers, no hooks, no mountain of IRS returns, officer affidavits, etc. Just cash and business. Terms were agreed in about 10 minutes. Penalties in 5 more. Too easy- but, a predatory or dishonest PE could be Satan. As probably many are.

its just a motorcycle... nothing exotic about this bikes charging system at all. Regular charging system, just like thousands of other bikes out there. Stator output, regulator output, condition of wiring and connectors, relays etc... its a 22 year old bike with a 6 year old battery... this is more preventive maintenance than anything. I have 9 other bikes in the garage that i get 4-5 years out of each battery using the nefarious (LOL) Deltran Battery Tender and will NOT be using a PC545 battery because of its "unique" charging needs... and i STILL got 6 years out of it LOL New relays and Motobatt MBTX12U on the way....

We all need to come up w/a procedure to troubleshoot these charging issues . This is not this hard. The biggest problem(s) are skill level and misunderstanding. You hate to work on this a week to find a ring terminal off when you are messing w/the battery. The only problem you will have in ownership of these bikes : you will become a master electrician of 12v DC , theory , wiring diagrams be able to explain resistance , capacitance , inductance RD time constant and a bunch of other stuff your wife will NEVER want mentioned in her presence .

I dragged my feet too long and it sold to someone else.

2004 v11 Cafe Sport Oil pressure light ON with key ON, engine OFF GEI 20A/25A relays just ordered picker PC782-1C-12S-R-X replacement relays

No, soldered/shrink tubing. No room for wondering. On the Sport I can remove the stator and regulator as one piece.

I assume you used butt connectors to "hard wire" this connection ?

Mine had marginal charge voltage for a long time, eventually started coming home discharged and eventually quit while riding. Long story short is my stator-to-regulator wires had poor connections under the gas tank, evidenced by heat browning. I secured the connection and charge voltage went from ~13.2 to 14.5 immediately.

Perhaps @pete roper will chime in here. Don't Centauros have the same potential cam issues as Grisos? Would Griso ghetto be a more knowledgeable forum? There's a wrecked Griso nearby for -$1k.... if the price goes down I may have another project