robbiekb

thats all thats wrong with it ? **grins** At 0 miles mine wouldn't hold an idle, the rotors were warped, the right hand pipe was badly rashed as if the bike had fallen over, same with the levers

I heard that Rockingham is nice and tight and technical , a bit similar to ButtonWillow where i do most of my track days. The Buell probbaly rules there !

my suspension upgrades will be easy. Todd tells me what i need and i give him the money to order it and fit it, then i go ride the bike

bet the Buell was tons of fun, rain on the way home sucks but at least it was dry for you i'm waiting for the pictures to get uploaded still from the trackside photographer but I'm finding it pretty rewarding to ride an unusual bike on the shorter tracks. There's nothing quite like it for the ego than to outbrake a Fireblade on the brakes, then overtake a GSXR 750 on the way out of the turn and finally to go round the outside of a Daytona 675 in a long sweeper all on the same lap Of course thats just group B where most of the riders are mere mortals like the rest of us struggling to find a way to feed all of that massive power to their back tires. Meanwhile all of us torquey Vtwin folks ride rings round em all day with massive cheesy grins on how much fun we're having Which track were you at ?

Heh Paul as an addendum to his long drawn out topic, and obviously completely off the original subject, I did finally run out of ground clearance on the right side of the bike. I'm going to fix it with a new rear shock that Todd Eagan is sourcing for me. The left side is still not really a problem because I can drop the bike onto the sidestand which has some give in it until the left peg feeler starts pushing up and then you knwo youre out of room. On the right, the titanium pipe touches down before the hero blob, even with the exhaust himounts. The hairy part with that is that it "high-centers" the bike, unloading the rear tire. So to get back to the original thread, take the Buell ! hahahahaha seriously ride whatever you like

I always do Paul , always do when i finally pick up the track bike from Todd, it'll have all of its street stuff taken off but for right now its not worth it for 6/10's track riding

mines rusted and started looking crappy so they now reside inside my parts bin

yeah you could but it would look darned funny on my bike at least. Maybe once I've changed out the fork springs and rear shock because i'll increase the ride height then. Until that happens, my hero blobs just get rusty

congratulations on an awesome bike !!! I have a 76 Convert also. It's a little challenging to ride quickly, as theres no engine braking but it is what it is tremendous fun !! quick question for you.... my 76 Convert came with two seperate fuel taps, that were isolated one for each cylinder. I just recently put on the crossover (for which Rich R - previous owner gave me hell) but leave both taps on all the time anyway. Which fuel line do you have ?

well we'll just have to agree to differ on the sidestand issue.. our tracks out here in California are plenty bumpy, Laguna was exceptionally so and it's never posed an issue, perhaps because i use it as a feeler gauge like i said, the hero blobs would never ever touch first on my bike so with the sidestand removed, the first thing to touch is a hard and unrelenting bodypart. I don't know about you but my exhaust was expensive and i kinda like it unscratched

Thats hilarious ! Did the bike pass tech and then blow a seal or something ? I'd rather drag the sidestand than something with no give in it. Incidentally I switched to Dunlop D209 SPORTMAX GP-A tires for track days and they're so confidence inspiring you can use all of the tire without ever feeling like the tires going to slide. Just feels like theyre going to grip forever!

i'm not quite sure why a Buell would be considered a race bike whereas the V11 isn't ? I was going round the outside of the Buells all day at ButtonWillow. The only place where I was remotely challenged was on the straight, and even then it mostly came down to braking and corner setup. I'm not a particularly gifted rider or particularly fast, but unless the track is REALLY fast, the difference is which bike you can ride the best. Even at Laguna Seca, once i got my suspension dialed in, it was relatively easy to hang with much "faster" bikes. The reality is that on an air cooled bike, just accept that you will get the drive out of the corner and then [insert trackbike flavor of the month here] will come stonking past you like you're standing still, until the rider freaks out that they're going way too fast and either rolls off the gas or starts braking at a way earlier brake marker. Cue for you to brake later coz youre going slower, overtake on the outside or set up to get him on the drive out of the corner. So just take whichever one you want to ride really otherwise you'll be bummed you left the bike you wanted to ride at home. My sidestand is pretty much fully ground down unfortunately, i also ground off the sidestand cutoff switch but then i'm using the sidestand to "feel" how much more space i have, on the right I have put Sport 1100i hi mounts on and have never had a problem with touching either the muffler or the crossover, probably more a reflection of my riding style though. I trailbrake my V11 like crazy and go through right toesliders something awful. Once the toesliders are sparking thats pretty much maximum lean for the tire. Interestingly enough Rich R's Scura NEVER touches its sidestand or pipes and he's significantly faster than me. The Scura does sit a bit taller though, it has revalved Ohlins. Makes all the difference in the world ..and the V11 sounds awesome at full throttle, she's a big old bus but given that most of us are not retired GP or AMA Gods, completely capable for where our skills are. just my 0.02cents

i'm running Dunlop Qualifier's with a 170 rear. Truly awe inspiring , my previous 208's got eaten up pretty badly at the last track day, the Qualifier's grip foreverare completely predictable and wore really well

I don't know exactly what his itinerary is but Todd Eagan is leaving for Europe tomorrow as he's racing representing the USA in the Dunlop Driver's Cup across Europe for the next 2 weeks ! http://www.dunloptires.com/driverscup/worldFinals/ i think todd will be updating his website at http://socal-guzzi.com/PHPBB with his schedule and results. If anyone gets the chance to go ride with him while he's there, jump at the chance, it's a fairly humbling experience but i guarentee it'll leave you with a greater understanding of the kinds of things that our bikes are truly capable of. Robbie

i bought the Momo for both myself and ingrid for when she's riding the Bonneville and i'm riding the Convert. They are what they are, I'm glad we bought them but i certainly wouldn't evaluate them like I would my Shoei RF1000 or Ingrid's Arai. I mean it's an open face and all

you have to tape them up or take em off at track days here. I learned my lesson though, the black tape looks way better on camera

ah homegrown is always the best

Where did you buy your crack ? thats the funniest thing i read all day

or lose those 30 pounds i put on since i moved to L.A. ?

bianchi with campi is the only way to go! i have a Veloce

if the dealer doesnt have any experience with the pc 3 they might just be gunshy. I bet Todd E. would be happy to talk with the dealer to fill them in to properly setup the fuel injected bike with a pc3

per Greg's post, I do indeed have a set of Sport 1100i passenger pegs on my V11 to himount the mufflers, which are Mistral Ti ovals. Everything was ordered and assembled at MI. The only problem I still experience is having to be careful on right handers as the right side front of the muffler will touch still at the point just where it joins into the stucchi(sp?) crossover. The same guy that built Todd Eagan's "Small Block GM" 2 into 1 pipe will hopefully be able to come up with a creative solution for me once time and funds permit.

touche good point Spending the first 4 years of the bikes life up in Seattle with no aftermarket tuning available, having a PC3 worked for me coz i could take a run to whatever Jap big 4 dealership was around and 9 times out of ten they'd be a powercommander dealer so could help me try to tweak the map. Back in the day, getting someone to dyno a Guzzi in Seattle was like trying to get the red sea to part, Sport bike shops wouldnt touch it and neither would the harley places. god forbid i'd chosen a path less travelled hahahahahahahaha. My particular vehemence comes from the fact that my bike never ran right for the first 3 years of it's life. Mostly my own fault as i threw on a bunch of mods with no access to anyone that could help me tune the bike or get it set up and stock its always been a pig, running really crappily in full stock trim. Finally I prefer to have professionals work on and help set up my bike because in my experience any of the tweaks that i'd try to make would mose likely retard the performance of the machine and the most subject matter expertise thats available to me locally is with the PC3. So if tuneboy works thats awesome, me on the other hand, i'm upgrading to the new pc3 as mine has functioned faithfully for almost 5 years and has a serial port, which my mac laptop doesn't

I really don't understand the whole PC bashing nonesense. I've worked in Computer Software and Hardware most of my after University life and can honestly say that the PC3 is about as idiot proof and easy to install as it gets. Anyone who says otherwise either has an axe to grind or really doesn't know what theyre talking about OR has some vested interest in selling some other solution. I have a lot of friends in the "chipping" business, a holdover from my days architecting the anti piracy solution for the original XBox. For cars it makes sense, but the real reason they don't use an "intercept" style unit is because the ECU and FI systems on cars adapt on the fly, which is one of the reasons why my buddies at PowerChip spend so much time and effort breaking the encryption on the stock ECU's, then getting the thing on a dyno, then remapping the ECU by flashing the ROM. This is not neccessary with an agricultural and old skool system such as the ones that we have on our Guzzi's. Given the sheer number of folks on this forum (including me) that have screwed up their bikes while adding mods, it makes a lot more sense to have a system that you can switch off if you're debugging, leaving the ECU completely stock. It's also handy for emissions if you live in a place that requires bikes to go through that. Look, everyone knows that modern bikes come far too lean from the factories in order to ensure that they pass the various Emissions laws. If the various competitors to PC were viable, i'd think that we'd see "Two Wheels Only" & Bike magazine adding those systems to their bikes as opposed to PC3's. Every single long term bike in Two's test fleet now has a pc3 fitted. Why ? they just work and with minimal fuss. I've been running mine without a custom map for 5 years and have velocity stacks, pods, stucchi crossover, TI pipes, high compression pistons etc etc. Without the pc3 switched on,the bike pings mercilessly, with it, throttle snatch is eliminated and it lifts the front wheel under throttle in 1st and 2nd. It's still a wee bit lean off of closed throttle but then i've never had the bike on a Dyno so thats my laziness. Don't take my word for it, I'd email Todd Eagan. I've just never seen such bizarre opposition to the one universally "smart" modification that all Fuel Injected motorcycles can benefit from.

Hey Bob , I am in process of encoding the full US commentary of the race and the European EuroSport feed . i'll post both on my media server for folks to watch. Even though the MOTOGP.com feed comes with uninterupted coverage i can't stand the commentators. the Europsort feed is trully fantastic with great excited British commentators with Randy Mammola roving in the pits getting EVERYONE to talk with him The last 20 so laps of the race were truly nail biting for us here in santa monica as well. Rossi is such a phenominal talent that I had visions of him slicing through the field, then being waved through by Checca and then Edwards leading him up to 7th or 8th place to win the championship by a few points. Its what we've come to expect from "the Doctor" For me the defining moment of the race was right at the start when Rossi uncharacteristically bogged off of the line. A malady that has beset Hayden since post Laguna all year. Going into the first couple of turns, you can clearly see Hayden right alongside Rossi and the two touch. If thats not Aggressive hanging it all out racing I don't know what is. Rossi is such a phenominal talent that he pretty much always seems to have the rest of the grid psyched out into believing that he can win every race before they even suit up. It's been great to see that this year he has been matched on several occasions for aggression as personally I was getting tired of watching Rossi run away with every championship and the rest fighting it out for scraps. That said I feel like Hayden's window of opportunity is closing with the move to 800's. Hopefully he'll prove me wrong, but the smart money would have to be on the new crop of younger ex 250 riders as the consistant challenger to Rossi's dominance. I might be wrong on this too, but i don't hear a lot of people sounding bummed out for Capirossi. Without the accident with his teammate , Loris would have been much much closer in the final standings. things are looking really good for Ducati metinks.