GuzziMoto

Rossi choosing to switch to Bridgestone seems like the dumbest move of his career(although he does not have many dumb moves to begin with). He may be able to make it work, but it will probably cost him some speed. I wish the FIM would come to their senses about the tyre rules.

Is that sanctioned by Maiden?

The valves on my wifes V11 were toast at 35,000 miles. The problem seemed to be from a poor fit in the valve guides, but it's hard to tell after the damage is done.

EEEDDDDDDIIIIEEEEEEEE!!!!!

I have a 07 Griso (first one sold in Maryland). My wife has a 01 V11. Comparing the two, I'd say build quality is improved. Fit and finish is much better. Quality of components is up (less rusting of bolts and whatnot). Quality of engineering is much the same. There are faults in the design of the mechanical components, but that just leaves room for improvement. To wrap up, I'd say that it is an evolutionary step. Better in most ways, but still a Guzzi.

Displacement wise that's true. You cant go much bigger. But it is still overbuilt for its size. But in terms of head flow, squish, compression, cams, weight of any spinning or reciprocating components, the Guzzi motor has a lot of room for improvement. It is not built with the same level of performance engineering as a Ducati or even a Harley.

I broke my leg in three places in a starting line accident much like that years ago. Always gives me chills to see someone stall on the grid.

Indy is nearly flat, but there is a slight bank to it. More of a positive camber really. I think they were just saying banking in reference to the oval outer track. Personally I would not call it banking but I would worry if someone else did. And at Daytona they used to run pretty much all the banking. It was a great race track. Now it has been neutered and they only run half the banking.

There's no reason a 1100-1200cc air cooled two valve motor can reliably produce 100-110 Hp at the rear wheel. Even Harleys can do that. The question is how much modification will it take and how much money will it cost. Modern Japanese engines are hard to make large improvements in their power output(it can be done but it costs big money). On the other hand, there is much room for improvement in a Guzzi motor due to the lower level of performance engineering applied to the motor from the factory. That tends to make larger improvements in power output easier and cheaper. And due to the overbuilt nature of the Guzzi, 100-110 Hp should be reliable. I have raced against Guzzi's like the one ridden by Pete Johnson that could run with a Ducati 916 down the back straight at Road Atlanta(back in the gravity-cavity days when it was a mile long). Granted, at that power level reliability no doubt takes a hit(probably a pretty big one, although I never saw him break).I'm just saying there is lots of room for improvement and much of it will not have a serious effect on reliability.

Well then, if you see a black Griso and a silver V11 say hello. Sometimes my wife and I feel like a rolling Guzzi fan club. A friend of mine may come with us who owns a Daytona, we'll be riding out from Maryland. But for a trip like this he would almost certainly ride one of his other bikes. Shame. We don't have the parade lap thing, we're not parade type people. But we do have tickets in the E grand stand penthouse and parking in the bike lot inside the speedway. I wonder if they'll enlarge that lot since there'll probably be alot more bikes then they're used to.. Should be good. We rode out for F1 at indy and it was great. Good ride out thru West Va. and southern Ohio.

I thought it was t-boning another rider(your title rival and/or team mate) to win the title. Stoner is the right man on the right bike at the right time. He is immensely talented but known to right checks for talent he could not cash(causing crashes). Now he is on a bike with overdraft protection. Do I think he's the best rider out there? No. But winning a title is not just a matter of being the best rider. If it was KRJR would never have won a title. It is being the right rider on the right bike at the right time and Stoner is that. On a different note, who if anybody is going to MotoGP at Indy?

If you do get stuck in traffic under high heat conditions, the first sign of over heating that I'm aware of is engine knock. Particularly when taking off from a stop at low engine rpm's the engine will knock where it did not do so before. That is a sign your engine is too hot. It does happen although I agree the Guzzi layout is not prone to it happening. When the motor gets that hot the oil may be breaking down as previously mentioned. But I have never felt the need to change the oil over it(but that would not be a bad thing to do).

Man i really twisted your words that time. I have said repeatedly that if a steering damper makes you happy, run one on your bike. I don't care. But to say "Wot's your life worth? Wot's your wife's life worth?" really seems to me(and my wife) that you are implying exactly what you claim to not be saying. And that is that you will crash if you do not have a steering damper on your bike. Again, if a damper on your steering makes you happy, run one. I find that many bikes, my Guzzis included, work just fine with out one. And what someone else thinks is not my concern. I have stated that it is a matter of personal preference, and as such your personal preference is not a factor to me. I can make up my own mind. This statement is also one of personal preference, not fact. "and by my own experience, I ALSO know that I can improve both handling and control with a steering damper!" It may be that to you a damper on your steering improves handling and control. But personally, I find that without a steering damper I have better feedback from the front tyre, lighter steering feel, and a faster turn in. You worry about crashing due to a tank slapper, and that could happen. Having a steering damper does reduce(but not eliminate) that risk. But that is not the only way you can crash. I am not some amazingly talented rider(maybe my wife is) but yet I(we) have not even had a glimpse of a headshake problem on either of our Guzzis. I have crashed a bike during a headshake issue, but that bike had a steering damper. But that was a TLR1000 on a racetrack, and it was my fault, not the bikes. The tankslapper was a reaction to me writting a check I could not cash. Again, since you seem to think I am saying otherwise, If you prefer the way your bike feels with a damper on its steering, run a steering damper. I choose not to because I prefer the way it feels without one. Please do not infer that I am making a mistake by doing so PS. Do you have any idea how many and what types of bikes are sold and ridden without a steering damper? Even Buells, with their agressive geometry, do not come with a steering damper.

Additionally, drilling holes in the stock wedges is a band-aid fix(not saying it doesn't work, just that it's not my idea of a proper fix. it's making something that was not well engineered to begin with work acceptably well by modifying it with your best guess for a bunch of holes.) I would hope that a replacement set of wedges would work even better(ie. smoother, longer,quieter)

There are times when I would choose to put a steering damper( both spellings are technically correct) on a bike, like if it is a race bike. But currently my wife and I own four bikes and none of them run a steering damper. And while we do everything on these bikes from parking lot racing and SuperMoto racing to touring in western N. Carolina and eastern Kentucky or riding out to Indy to camp and watch the races(with all the cr*p that you need to strap on to the back of the bike to campout) and we seem to not get into issues with headshake rearing its ugly head. So I think its fair to say that you are not automatically gonna crash if you do not have a steering damper on your Guzzi. If you think you are then maybe you need to fix your bike.

I think it's safe to say that Guzzi's are pretty stabile by design. And if it is not, there is probably something wrong with the bike whether it is a bad steering damper or other chassis issues. My wifes V11, without a steering damper, is very stabile and yet is lighter and quicker steering then it was with a steering damper. Of course we have altered the front forks of her 01 sport to actually provide compression damping. Clearly I have no respect for how Guzzi wanted our bike to handle and ride.

Nobody is saying that steering dampers don't affect the way a motorcycle handles. But not everybody likes the effect a damper has on Guzzi handling. Some would prefer to adjust the suspension so that the bike does not react poorly to bumps, so that the dampers actions are not required. It's very simple, there is more then one way to make a Guzzi handle well. And my way may be different then yours. I'm not saying anybody else should take off a damper that they feel is needed, but if someone does not feel the damper is needed, there is no reason for them not to try the bike without the damper and see if that is more to their liking. The rake and trail numbers of a Guzzi make it inherently stable. It wants to go straight. Even if something knocks it off that course, it will want to restabilize. A damper will slow down the steering and make the bike feel even more stabil. It will also give you an extra measure of protection against poor handling over bumps and whatnot. But there are no free rides. It does that at the expense of quicker steering, which could also have it's own safety implications in the wrong situation. It comes down to personal choice. If you believe in that sort of thing. I do. Theree is no right answer or wrong answer about a steering damper on a Guzzi. If there was, why do the new Guzzi's not come with them at all in spite of nearly the same geometry? And I don't believe a Griso or Breva is a dangerous bike to ride. Quite the contrary, They are very composed and ride much like a V11 without a steering damper. Edit.. I would add that removing a steering damper from aV11 is no more dangerous to do then screwing with the fork height or shock length.

Just for anybody who cares, I made a mistake. I confused two seperate steering damper situations. The one that was binding was not the one that came off my wifes V11. The one that came off her V11 was fine, it just made the bike handle poorly. It was a different bike that had the damper that was binding. If anyone feels like a steering damper makes their bike handle better, that's fine. Run a damper. But please don't preach to the rest of us saying that it's a important component that we are crazy to remove. Feel is subjective, and if you like the way a damper feels, great. But some of us prefer the lighter steering and better feedback that you get without the damper. Feel free to try both ways than decide for yourself which way you prefer, just don't go on and on about why your way is right and the other way is wrong.

Sorry Ratchet, but you are deadnut wrong on that one. Most motorcycles do not have nor require a steering damper. Those that do have one either need it because of aggressive steering geometry(which our Guzzi's do not have. they steer pretty slow), or they have one due to fashion considerations(which is probably how Guzzi's end up with one.). If you like having one, that's fine. But a modern Guzzi does not need one to be a safe and happy motorcycle.

If its anything like the damper that came off my wifes bike(for same reasons) full soft still had too much resistence. Plus hers would bind, resisting movement, and then let go cuasing the bike to weave. Pulled it off and bike 100% better. A bike with that kind of geometry does not need a steering damper anyway. It can only be a bad thing.

I'm surprised that someone hasn't already said this. Start with the basics, sync the throttlebodies, check the tps voltage, and make sure the valves are set right(not to what the manual might say, but to world spec. ie. .15 and .20 mm) I sure others can add more. Guzzi's are sensitive to they way they are set up. There is a dip there, but it should barely be noticable. Welcome to the club.

To which I say, "heat treating" has nothing to do with heat cycling. It is a different concept altogether. That is why I do not agree with him on that. My concept of heat cycling is not based on some myth that engine parts heat treat themselves while in use. Therefore his comment dismissing the idea of heat cycling is wrong in my opinion, because he is basing it on a lack of understanding of what heat cycling is. If you said it was wrong because you had proof that engine parts do not change size when heated and cooled, that would be one thing. But he says heat cycling is wrong because engines do not generate enough heat to "heat treat" parts, which has nothing to do with heat cycling. Sorry, I am sick right know and cannot think any more about this at the moment. If you still don't see my point, maybe we'll get back to it later.

Breaking in the rings is a seperate issue from the idea that a Guzzi is built from larger, more over sized parts that may not fit together as well as a typical Japanese motor. This leads to the premise(of which I subscribe) that a Guzzi has not fully broken in until it has 5-10k or more miles under it's belt. The idea is that these larger, less precisely fitting parts need longer to wear in to match each other. Thus becoming a smoother running machine as the miles stack up. It doesn't mean you should baby the bike for the first 5-10k miles. It means that the bike will improve with age. So ride it how you want it to be ridden and enjoy.

In the post you quoted it says a couple of times that heat cycling comes from "heat treating" which involves high temps and has to do with modifying the structure of the metal to change it's properties. The heat cycling I know has to do with the principle that metal expands when heated and contracts when cooled down. A simple shaped part will probably be the exact same size and shape afterwards as it was before. A more complex shape like a piston may not, do to things like uneven heating and expansion due to differences in thicknesses and shape. Think of it as letting the parts that get hot "take a set" before you pound on them. You don't have to subscribe to this theory. I have no scientific testing to support it. But it has served me well over the past 20 years with everything from GP bikes and high strung Ducati's to a Buell Blast.

MotoMan's advice is good, but he does not understand heat cycling at all. It has nothing to do with "heat treating" and everything to do with the fact that when metal parts heat up they expand, then when they cool back down they contract. But aside from that it is good advice. Not exactly how I do my own stuff, but I'm sure if you follow his advice you'll be fine.