Gmc28

thread revival... the lack of overlap on my header pipe and crossover (agostini) has been gnawing at me, though perhaps for no good cause. i have the mistral on the other V11 (goldie), and am tempted to pull it off and put it on Red, to confirm that it has the "correct" amount of overlap, at least to satisfy my curiosity, and partly then to hide the scarred header pipe on Red where the stock crossover left its marks. i'd also gain the crossover mounting bracket which the mistral has for Red that the agostini crossover does not have (but then goldie loses it, though Red gets all the attention and riding these days). The other night i loosened just the front crossover pipe connections on the agostini crossover (all newly installed as of a month or two ago), as well as the rear-most muffler hangar, so that the muffler and crossover could somewhat "swivel" forward and slide more onto the header pipe (just got more overlap onto the header pipe). That required some effort, but just a little pressure from underneath with my arms, nothing mechanical and no rubber mallets.... But still i ended up tightening the clamps while holding some (20 lbs?) of pressure on the whole thing to keep it lined up the way i wanted. any of you out there experienced with exhaust work believe that its a bad idea to do that? my goals are as described above, and to help assure i have good snug exhaust joints. have also considered using some exhaust compound, though i have not been a fan of those in the past. most likely i'll just move the mistral crossover from goldie onto Red, and call it good, but then ultimately i'll end up with same question for Goldie (though maybe things will line up differently with goldie with its stock exhaust). i've also noticed clear evidence of exhaust joints that are NOT tight on goldie with the mistral crossover. I did not install that system, and don't know if it was user error, or a mistral issue, or if its not really an issue at all. any mistral users have comments on that?

That’s us. Nice action pic!

Actually I’m with Erickson Aero Tanker (Aero Air). Jack Erickson sold sky crane many years ago, and partnered with my boss to buy this company. And it is his collection we speak of. His name is part of both the old and the new companies, as founder of the old company and owner of the current one. We work alongside the big sikorsky’s sometimes, but we’re in the white/orange fire fighter jets, the MD87’s. And we’ve definitely been overhead in northern AZ quite a bit this season, and on the ground there at Prescott, Winslow, then over at silver city NM, etc.

think i'll give it a try. dollar is strong against the pound now, and always fun to play with a new tool, so will give it whirl and compare to the twinmax. that damn BMW dealer years ago put the bug in my head that maybe i can still get the sync always just a little better....

Love it! i'll head down to napa and get one right away, and carry it in the V11 road tool kit :-> i've got a soft spot for Alfa's, "peculiar" as they are. I spent the summer when i was 15 in italy tooling around in a 2.0 quadrifoglio (sp?), with an uncle who lived there and was insane enough to let me behind the wheel, so he could smoke and cue up his music on what was then a state of the art stereo (mostly Mario Lanza, Buddy Holly, and John Denver). All that espresso and nicotine formed an "elder" family member who should have been saying "slow down kid", and instead was saying "faster!"

Our company has a sizable collection of WW2 birds that’s kept at Madras airport, here in Oregon (likely not a town you’d know unless you’re from around here... a perfect place to build a nice big facility on a quiet airport). Pretty much Only the owner got to fly the P38, his favorite, for many years. The air show in Madras each year is great, because it’s such a quiet little airport, and not a zoo like some of the big air shows. if you’re a fan, here’s the collection: www.ericksoncollection.com And of course, to stay on theme, if you’re ever riding your V11 in or near Oregon, be sure to take in some of the top notch riding out in central Oregon, and stop by the museum!

If you want to share the part numbers, I’d be a taker....

Thanks all. Wasn’t really fearing anything major, just filling in the mental gaps. Mission accomplished! I’ll dig into the wild guzzi feed and check things out this winter. paul, I see a P-38 on the avatar.... u have a private collection?😎. Sweet machines.

i'm guessing there may be a thread on this but not seeing it.... My old Twinmax i've had since Y2K has been my sync tool. On the last go-around with the red v11 i noted that even on the most sensitive setting i wasn't getting much change as i adjusted things. In comparison, on the old oilhead i had for years that twinmax needle would bounce around soon as adjusting things out of the sweet spot on the sync in either direction. On top of that, at one point many tune-ups into owning the oilhead, i had the BMW dealer do a sync once, and it came back better than my previous sync's. Hmm...i had been confident in my technique and results, but now had a new standard. what was i missing, or did they just have a better/more sensitive sync tool? Not too long later, sold the oilhead, without resolving in my head what the bottom line was on all that. Fast forward to now, and i'm looking at comments (TomChri, etc) on the carbtune pro, and some other options, and generally see that folks tend to think the the carbtune pro might be more accurate than the twinmax, but thats really the question. I haven't ventured from the twinmax in 20-ish yrs, and love a good tool, so thought i'd fish about for input on whether to consider shelling out for a different sync measure tool. and no thanks for all the "just make it yourself" stuff. I know, those work, but I'm only interested in retail tools, and ones that are better than my old twinmax. And/or thoughts on what else i might be overlooking for why i'm seeing such little variation on the twinmax as i adjust the sync/white knob (yes, valves done, idle backed off, un-connected, etc.) Ciao

Thanks Docc- Then I shall ride on in bliss, and re-visit it in winter.

this is probably something i should already know, but i don't.... i have this seepage coming from left throttle body, leaving the fuel goo on the left side alt cover. is it something to just wipe off and ignore, or is it indicative of an issue that should be addressed in the throttle body? fishing for easy answers during the prime riding season, when i'm much less likely to fiddle and more likely to just ride, which then flips around to the opposite scenario in the wet season. So much riding to be done, so little time...

That sounds about right on the savings. you could probably look up your oval mistrals online and find the advertised weight. my ST4 of about the same vintage had a 9lb savings going from stock to aftermarket carbon. i just pulled a set of aluminum stock cans off my lemans, but they actually came from a sport, and were installed by the PO. Actually sounded pretty good, and I guess now I know why... They must have been cored, because they were (are) quite light. They’re way lighter than the two sets of stock lemans cans that I have on the shelf.

good point. i'll be looking at ways to do something like that. i am partial to how clean it looks down in that area without the charcoal cannister and all that stuff down there, but thats hair-splitting, and re-installing parts of it as solution for crossover support would be worthwhile. does the Stucchi also not have a bracket? the Mistral i have on Goldie has the bracket, and i do like the mistral in regard to the nuanced performance angle.

thanks Docc. i should have thought of that. but as my wife says, just a kid trapped in a mans body... BTW, your 115k machine sure looks nice in the pics after your mx. Special diet, massaging, and skin care creams keeping her in good shape? I forgot to mention that i also noticed more of drip under the left throttle body, on the starter plastic cover. used to drip about once a month, but seems worse now, though its been mostly sitting for the last many months. may pull that left side TB and take a look.

Took red out for a Sunday test flight... New exhaust installed, and sun came out a bit. With the new exhaust and crossover, she ran great. Arguably it’s a more linear throttle response through the rpm range. But it ran great before the exhaust change, so will need continued observations to confirm that initial thought. Mixed feeling on not having the mounting bracket on the agostini crossover. The start switch on red didn’t crank it over. Hmm. Played with clutch, checked if it was in gear, cycled kill switch, etc. Was about to pull seat and check breakers and/or relays, but one last try on start switch and she cranked. Started up fine then, and did again on shut-down and restart. Tiny seep from front brake Rez caused some paint damage to black paint on triple tree (sh!t). Veglia rpm gauge now has some slight condensation on inside of glass. Will have to poke around the forum to see how much I should worry about that... Still have the slight fueling “wandering” at lower rpm when at constant throttle. But a good ride and sweet running machine...

Middle of June, and still raining quite a bit. Good excuse to put Red back into the shop and get the new exhaust installed. Looks pretty, to my eye. I like the sound of all the exhausts I’ve heard on the V11’s, though I’ll admit I’m not loving these new Agostini’s sound as much as some others I’ve heard. Still sounds great, i just prefer the lower tone of some of the other mufflers. Also installed the agostini crossover. Many love the Stucchi, i have the mistral on Goldie, and in this case just figured I’d give this agostini x-over a whirl. a bonus of the Agostini crossover is that it somehow cleans up the look a bit more than the mistral x-over. Presumably because there’s no mounting bracket on the aft aft end, but it’s just noticeably more “naked” looking. Of course that comes at the expense of not having that bottom mount bracket for structural reasons... hopefully that won’t be an issue. I’ve not done a lot of exhaust system changes, other than re-installing stock exhausts, or just putting on new cans, but per my limited experience this was again a weird game of djanga, lining things up, twisting, sliding, and slowly tightening things up so they aligned. One issue i think is that perhaps the PO had slide the x-over a bit too far up the header pipe. No big deal, but leaves visible corrosion under where the pipes overlap of course, and i had to have less overlap with this setup to make it all fit (probably about 1.5 inches rather than about 2.5 inches) together, mostly based on the muffler mounts. So it left a bit of an eye-sore on those header pipes. Perhaps vanity will again get the best of me and I’ll spring for header pipes at some point down the road.

Will be fun to see your progress... isn’t it winter down there, time for some garage work? :->. But sounds like you won’t be suffering, with an ST4 to ride and a V11 in the garage ready for some hands-on. Sounds like a good “happy place” to be. i was extremely fond of my ST4 (916). The sound of that machine with proper exhaust is in the class of the V11 (like the “Italian tenors”).

Thx PHil. I’ll chase down some crush gaskets...

Opened a box from Italy. A fool and his money are soon parted.... now just need to determine if fitting them, and the new crossover, will be just the typical battle with the fitment, or if there are any special tricks or concerns with that charcoal canister/exhaust mount setup.

i'll keep using my aerostitch, probably forever, while i make it an ongoing hobby to continue to look for the ultimate riding jacket (for me). That unicorn may never be found, or who knows.... but the Stitch will remain my well-used, tired looking, heavy, aging riding companion. But in a moment of weakness (or ?) i picked up the relatively cheap Sedici Garda jacket a few weeks back, a new model for them (cycle gear). Haven't been a Sedici fan in the past... just didn't have anything that interested or fit me. But the Garda jacket seemed to both fit me for the most part (odd, as most popular and marketed stuff won't fit my hunger-strike type body), and it largely fit the "mission" i had in mind for it: lighter weight, no liner to have to remove (i'll provide my own layers, thank you), supposedly water proof (which means its not, but will be ok in an occasional shower), right kinds of pockets, longer length, and doesnt' look like something from Star Wars. oh, and its affordable. and has the cycle gear warranty, which has always seemed pretty good here at my local store. rode with it for the first time last weekend, and so far so good. prefer more back armor, but will chew on that option. oh, and don't like the velcro closures on the wrists. Velcro just wears out. but at the price, it doesn't need to be a "forever" jacket.

Phil - don’t u have the agostini crossover?

Amen. Staintune makes nice stuff, and the 2 brothers i bought and had on an oilhead (For a short time, then sold ‘em) were much lower quality. Anyone have the Agostini crossover? They’ve offered to sell me a set of mufflers I’m inclined to spring for, And they also have a crossover they sell. It looks like the Stucchi i think... the two pipes join rather than have the little bridge pipe like on the Mistral crossover. Have the mistral x-over on goldie, and could just go that way again for Red (that has been the plan), but maybe that agostini crossover would be good. Anyone have knowledge on that unit?

like doing a valve adjustment.... put a thin feeler gauge between throttle arm and the idle/set screw, and tighten screw until it just barely pinches the feeler, a very thin one (or thicker, but then tighter... you get the idea). but getting it up in there between the throttle and the screw on the right side is a hassle.

Nice work, and sharing docc! The only datapoint which is troubling me is that despite all that you’ve wisely chronicled, I’ve run several odyssey’s and (older) westco’s On my bikes for around 10yrs at a whack, never with an issue, and always on a battery-tender (deltran) brand charger (all winter, always, and at times in the summer). No issues. Too many batteries that lasted too long for me to ignore. Now, I never killed one and had to bring it back, I don’t think.... so maybe the Deltran (batterytender brand) is ok for that. I’ll check the float voltage at least, and see how it compares to what you’ve shared here... I’ve got a shorai I inherited (I will not dive into that here) which would just drop off on voltage, but then come back alive after a brief hit with the li-ion charger, despite being told that it should be toast. Took it out of the bike and it now powers my home clay pigeon shooter, very nicely! Great covid activity [emoji41]

Yes. I Backed off right side idle screw (had been set high, and on the right side). And yes, .157, or 157mv.