GuzziMoto

Congrats. Now the work can begin.....

Swedish gas..... Is it blonde with big knockers? Nice first post, an advertisement for some fuel company with zero Guzzi content.

But I can swap footpegs without changing the porkchops...... But I am glad it worked out for you.

Good to know. Hopefully it will never come in handy, but you never know.....

You have a different way of looking at this than I do. That you have never enjoyed a peaky powerplant is your opinion. But your opinion on that doesn't mean someone else who does enjoy a peaky power plant is wrong. As to the width of the V11's power, ours delivers very usable power from 3,000 rpms to over 7,000 rpms. That is, it delivers good power for around 2/3's of it rpm range (looking at it as from idle (around 1200 rpms) to redline. Compared to the previously mentioned FZR 400, which delivers good power for around 1/3 of its rpm range. You are looking at it as "how many rpms does it make good power in. And that is one aspect. But another, possibly better metric is to look at it by how much of its available rpms does it make good power in. And I don't know about your V11, but the wife's V11 makes good power from 3,000 rpm to over 7,000 rpm. A great example of it is way back when I was riding the wife's V11 with a couple friends. One was on a new R1 (new at the time, this was probably 20 years ago when the R1 was new), he was a buddy I roadraced with. After a while he said to me he was stunned at how badly the V11 would pull him out of corners. His R1 had way more power than the V11 had, but to use that power he had to really rev the engine. Where as the V11 seemd to pull hard out of the corners without effort, no extra revs required. Could an R1 go faster than a V11? Sure. But not without bringing the revs up. I have ridden a number of small displacement streetbikes, bikes like the Ninja 250 and Eliminator 250, the aforementioned FZR 400, and others. They were all peaky, and they were all good fun to ride, especially on a twisty road. And yeah, when you have 200+ hp you need to worry about making it usable. A V11 doesn't have that problem.

Nice to see an older bike getting all that attention. Very nice.

As long as they aren't taking a perfectly good Guzzi and turning it into some stupid "chopper" abomination I am good with it. These are all cool Guzzi's. The MGS 01 is, to me, the coolest Guzzi ever sold (the V8 GP bike was never really "sold"). But it was really a factory Ghezzi & Brian as I understand it. I especially enjoy the current trend of build what look like old cafe bikes but with modern suspension and brakes. That is kinda what my Daytona has become. But I haven't put the effort in that some have. Mine isn't nearly as well done as the first bike in the thread.

I suspect the deleting of the airbox has more to do with the "steps" in the power curve, not the mapping. And while for most people removing the airbox looses too much power where they want it to put what power it does add elsewhere, if that sort of power delivery works for you I say go for it and have fun. I fully understand how a more peaky power delivery can be fun. One of the most enjoyable street bikes I have ever had was an FZR400. It wasn't until you hit 10,000 rpms that things got seriously entertaining. But once there it was quite entertaining. While a Guzzi lump with the air box and proper exhaust can deliver an incredibly wide spread of power, take that air box away and the spread of power becomes less wide and more focused on certain rpms, depending on intake tract length and cam profile. While that may not be something everyone wants, I can see how it could be fun. Most people focus on the total area under the curve, generally for streetbikes that is what is considered optimal. But sometimes it is worth sacrificing some of the area under the curve to make things a little more aggressive. Sometimes people need to relax. It isn't always about what gives the best curve on a dyno. Sometimes it is just about what makes it fun.

I like what the OP has done. I am a fan of bar end mirrors. But the wife isn't, and the V11 is her baby. I feel compelled to point out, though, that another option is to upgrade the original bars / clip-ons themselves.

Caswell https://caswellplating.com/epoxy-gas-tank-sealer.html It now comes in colors. I don''t recall that being an option back then. I used clear. But Dragons Blood sounds cool. I left the tank empty for a few months, it shrank back to about original size, and I coated the inside with the Caswell gas tank coating. No issues since.

The wife's V11 tank has a small amount of bubbling in the paint, mainly under the harness for her tank bag. It is like little pimples in the paint. The tank is now coated, and so far seems to be stable. The pimples are there from before the tank was coated.

Going back to the question of compression and pinging; The wife's V11 did the same thing, it would sometimes ping. Usually it was in the midrange under load. Backing off the throttle would make it stop, but where's the fun in that. I pulled the heads, had the ports cleaned up (and the valves / valve guides replaced, they were worn), milled the heads down to increase squish (stock the heads have a bevel around the rim instead of a proper squish band), and milled the cylinders down to set deck height evenly (milled both cylinders, but milled one more than the other to make them even). I am running more compression as a result, but perhaps due to better squish the issue of pinging went away and it runs much better. I would not run avgas in a Guzzi. That seems silly. No reason the run fuel with octane that high in a motor with compression so low. If you really do need ethanol free fuel you can buy that for around the same cost as avgas. But our bikes have been running gas with ethanol in it for their entire lives, it isn't without issues but it isn't then end of the world. If you are worried about it, drain the tank, let it dry out, and coat it with Casewell. I am a fan of higher compression and good squish. The increased squish creates more turbulence in the combustion chamber, which improves burn and decreases the chance of detonation / pinging. I am, at some point, planning on doing the same thing to my 2V Griso. First I need to replace the clutch. But while it is apart......

What a sad day. I have seen people die on motorcycles, and it serves as a reminder that this is a dangerous hobby and should be treated as such. My thoughts go out to you, the guys friend, and the guys family and loved ones.

If you really want one, I would just try to find one regardless of color. It can always be painted to match. But they are rare, not a lot of them out there. So limiting your search to one that is already green will reduce the odds of finding one dramatically, especially since the green V11's are not as common as some of the other colors. It is easy enough to have one painted once you find it, regardless of what color it started as.

Fair enough, but Guzzi is the one paying Acerbis to make the tanks, they are spec'ing the tank. They are who we are buying the tank from, not Acerbis. If I buy a Ford and something on it is poorly made I don't blame the vendor who made that part, I blame Ford. Not sure why Ford came to mind in my off the cuff example...

Whatever the reason the tanks expand, the real issue is (in my opinion) that Guzzi did not make a tank that was suitable for its job. They knew ahead of time what would be put into the tanks, and yet they did not spec a tank made to properly hold said fuel and everything it would likely include. Is it the end of the world? Not to me. I am used to having to finish building Guzzi motorcycles. Having to coat the inside of the fuel tank to make it capable of properly holding fuel is not that big a deal. Not to me. And I suspect many other Guzzi people feel the same way. I can, however, see how this could become a major shitstorm with other brands like Ducati. I can see those guys getting pretty upset that their uber expensive Italian exotic has a fuel tank that has issues if you put fuel in it.

Years ago I was a motorcycle courier in DC. They have a number of mini tunnels, where one road might go under a traffic circle or under the mall for a couple blocks. It was common to clutch it and rev your engine under there. One of the other guys timed his so that he clutched it, rev'ed the engine on his FZ750, and keyed the mic on his radio. So everyone else heard this loud rev'ing noise over the radio. I thought it was hysterical, but the management was not amused. Long after, it is still hard to resist a few blips of throttle when going through tunnels. But usually I clutch it and blip the throttle so there is no change of speed. Good luck with the MV. Is it an original MV or one of the new MV's. I enjoy the original ones, used to race twins with AHRMA and seeing the old MVs that Team Obsolete would bring out was great fun. Sharing the track with them was awesome, but seriously loud.

My experience is to run the tank down as low as possible before removing, and after removing just drain / pour out whatever fuel is left. I think it is better to let the tank sit empty. Also, a number of people have reported their tanks "shrinking" back to normal size if left to sit empty. As noted by docc, a good idea is to let it sit over a saw horse or other set up that mimics the mounting. After letting ours sit empty over winter it shrank back to a more normal size. I then used an epoxy tank coating to hopefully better seal it. Time will tell if that works out better or worse.

The stock forks on a Griso are actually fairly decent forks, and really only need to be properly sprung and valved. You don't need to replace the internals, but you can. As I recall, the same forks are used on the Aprilia RSV. But I could be mis-remembering. The rear shock is not very good, but there are a number of quality replacements available. Take your pick.

Some front forks have rebound adjustment at the top and compression adjustment at the bottom. The Italian Marzocchi's are a little unusual in that they often have rebound in one leg and compression in the other. My old Buell X1 had Showa forks like that, as I recall. The older Marzocchi forks on the wifes V11 had the rebound in one leg and compression in the other, but the compression adjustment was worthless from the factory. If you took the forks apart you could see that the compression bypass valve (the adjuster) was only doing anything in like the last 1/4 of the travel. Until then the fork oil was free to avoid the valve stack or adjuster by flowing through ports in the side of the cartridge. But I was able to block off one of the two ports in the side of the cartridge and that forced fork oil to go through the valve stack and / or adjuster. Way better control of compression. To figure this out, I took the forks apart, removed the springs, and with oil still in them I cycled the suspension through its stroke. You could feel how freely the suspension moved until it got to that last 1/4 of travel. Then suddenly the valving and adjuster came into play. It was like having a hydraulic adjustable bumpstop. Mind you, this was with the older silver forks. I don't know how the internals are in the newer forks. But they are just forks, there is no magic there.

Yeah, we did that fairly early on to the wife's Monster. It makes leaving from a stop much easier, as well as making the bike feel a lot more powerful in normal riding. It is still geared too tall I think, but it is way better than it was stock. I do like the old bevel drive Ducati's. We used to have (ages ago) a guy with a beautiful bevel drive 900 that raced it at Summit Point, Bill Dietz was his name. That thing was wicked cool. Of course, back then we had another guy who raced a Guzzi against Bill, my buddy Dave Fine. They were fun guys to race against.

As mentioned, the Breva is a very different Guzzi. The 1100 cc engine is a evolution of the engine in the V11, but it does have a different character. But the bigger difference is in the handling. The chassis of the V11 is very different from the chassis of the Breva. The Breva lacks the sharpness of the V11. The Breva is a cushy motorcycle, and can be a very comfy ride. But with a few smart mods the V11 can be made more comfortable. Lower foot pegs, converting to handle bars or higher clip ons, and a even a different or modified seat, can all help make the V11 more comfortable if required. It is easier to make a better handling motorcycle more comfortable than it is to make a more comfortable motorcycle handle better. And welcome to the forum.

I like the early 90's Tamburini SS's. We raced a 750 SS hybrid back then. The next gen Terblanche SS doesn't do much for me. He did seem to nail it out of the park with the Supermono, but his other designs are not my cup or tea. They are too uncomfortable for a start. Not that the earlier SS's were overly comfortable. But the Terblanche versions were less comfortable, less usable. I am not sure Terblanche rode much. Either way, while they are exciting motorcycles and nothing wrong with owning a Ducati (the wife has a Monster 1100), they are a very different Italian mistress than a Guzzi. The Ducati motors do tend to pick up revs amazingly quick, way less flywheel mass. And they tend to be geared stupidly tall, but usually you can easily fix that with a new smaller front sprocket. But in the end, I think the only two Ducati's I will have are the two old racebikes that sit in my living room. I have found a number of Ducati's interesting, I really thought the Streetfighter series was pretty cool. But I just don't think I will ever buy one. Now, a Triumph Street Triple, I could see buying one of those.

As I recall, 12.85 volts for an Odyssey AGM battery is fully charged. So you should be fine installing it without topping it up. 12.2 volts is 50% charged. Charging voltage is higher than 12.85 volts, but at rest a fully charged Odyssey battery should be around 12.85 volts as I recall.

You should be able to go either direction, although I can't imagine why you would want to replace the 4.5" wide earlier wheel with the wider, heavier, later 5.5" wheel.