RichMaund

Hi Folks. I've been on this forum since early Fall of 2002. I'd like to thank Jaap first off for running a terrific forum. I now spend more time here than on the Guzzi discussion list or the Ural board. The features of this forum are just awesome! It has attracted a great crowd too! I have been riding street bikes since 1980. I have owned 24 motorcycles over the years. Half of those were Guzzi's. What can I say? I'm hooked on them. I'll soon be 42 years old. I have a daughter and son, both teenagers. And I have a beautiful wife who has always been supportive of my year 'round cycling habit. (I don't own a car. But my wife does. ) We've been together for 23 years now. Married for over 19 of them. I'm a lucky guy. I spent 20 years in the US Navy. Primarily I was a nuclear plant mechanic. I've served on subs and carriers. I was hit badly by a red light runner in 1995 and seriously injured. I annoyed the Navy into letting me finish my "20" even though I couldn't have passed a physical to save my life. (My legs were crushed and my left shoulder injured.) I was over due for shore duty anyway. I believe they owed me that! Besides, I made myself so valuable to my shop that they couldn't afford to let me go! I took it as a high professional compliment when it took three young guys to replace me when I retired in Sept. of 1999. I've been rebuilding seats as a hobby since 1993. A local Dealer forced me to turn pro in 1996. I've been doing it full time since 1999. I do OK for a guy who works outta his garage! It's thanks to the internet and all my past customers that I can earn a living from this. If I had to depend only on local business, I'd be much skinnier now! My V11S is my main ride and transportation. I rode 60 miles round trip to a VA Hospital for a physical this morning. The misty rain made the bike filthy on the return trip. But it cleared up this afternoon. It was beautiful out today so I decided to clean and polish the bike. Feels more like June than February! But the cold will be back tomorrow. My wife, Donna, took this photo of me with the bike in our driveway this afternoon. I decided to use part of it to update my avatar as well! The luggage system is something I built Summer before last. Holds the two Givi E360 bags and my camping gear perfectly! My wife and son like the bolt-in passenger backrest too! Hard to believe I've had the bike two years come May! Time flies! This has gotta be as close to the perfect Guzzi (For me.) as I have ever owned! Gorgeous! Light handling and fast. Great "feel" and "character" to the motor. And easy to care for as well. Guzzi really hit a home run with this model! Springs feels like it's just around the corner. 'Can't wait to meet some of you at the Guzzi Rallies this year!

Great photo Brent! On mine it had the return spring from hell. Belonged in an animal trap! I substituted a spring from a ball point pen, made sure the mechanism was well adjusted, and it's worked just fine ever since.

It is symetrical. Since I tear around at 5-6k rpm all the time I tend to use the brakes only lightly. With the light flywheel, this bike has the best engine braking ever. Rolling the throttle on-off is mostly all I need unless I dive deep into a corner. Then I nail the front brake for a second before pitching into the turn! My Cali and Mille' GT had little engine braking this way. So I greatly enjoyed those dual iron front disks! On those bikes I would often wear out a front tire (Cupped evenly and worn out.) at 5k miles, then I'd get about 8k on the rear.

After getting 10,000 miles from a set of tires, I feel I really can't bitch about tire wear. I have never gotten 10K from any bike tire in all the 24 bikes I have owned. Usually, NLT 8K miles, I am shopping rubber! My stock Battle Axes have 10K miles. The rear is worn flat in the middle from too much freeway cruising. Only 1/16" tread left in the middle. The front tire is mildly cupped on both sides and has 1/8" tread left. A friend of mine with the same bike & tires got 12 K from his. But he lives in an area with twistier roads than I do. He made use of his side tread to more evenly wear the tires out than I could have! Personally, I am very happy with the tire wear considering how I have used the bike. No complaints on this subject! (Thanks Jaap! I've been looking for a reason to use that new emoticon!)

Mine operates like Woodburns also. I kind of like it that way. You know how serious it is. On solid?!? Better take the next exit! I would prefer larger/brighter warning lamps as these seem quite small after owning a Cali 1100.

Sorry. I didn't save the number on it.

Dumb luck is what killed my bike when I installed the PCIII. That just happened to be the same time that an electrical problem and a mechanical problem reared they're ugly heads all at once. But a week of careful work, heart ache, head scratching and finally beating my skull into the shop wall finally paid off. Once I found and solved the two relatively minor problems, it ran better than ever on the PCIII and has been just fantastic since then. Never underestimate "Murphy's Law" when working on your motorcycle!

Why store the bike???? 27 degrees out this morning. Me and my son rode out to our monthly Guzzi Breakfast Meet together on the V11S. Bike ran like a dream. We froze our asses off but had a ball! This is what hot tea and coffee at the restaurant are for! 10 other like minded enthusiasts joined us. It was a great morning to be alive! Less than 20 miles on the bike today. But enough to warm up the engine well and charge the battery. Store a Guzzi? Bah!!!

I agree with Buck on this. I followed the factory rpm limits and recomendations. But once free to rev beyond 5k rpm, I did so frequently in short bursts to load and then unload the engine. No sustained high rpm stuff. Just sprints, which was much fun! By 3K miles, the bike felt really good and had smoothed out considerably. By 7K miles, it was great! It rev's freely and smoothly. Just a great example of how good a Guzzi engine can be. Couple it to a new 6 speed transmission and now with the PCIII in it, it is simply the best of a dozen Guzzi's I have owned over the years. No comparison. This V11S is just the best all-around Guzzi bike I have ever owned. By next month I'll have the wheels off for red powdercoating and new tires. I'll change the fork fluid and it'll be all set for Spring. Getting it done by Feb. will just be a perk! I have read a number of folks complaining of high oil consumption in new Beemers. It was often found that the rings hadn't seated, even after a few thousand miles! TOO gentle break-ins were to blame. These nigusil coated cylinders are tough! So I have to agree that a thoughtful and mildly agressive break-in are the way to go.

Janusz has explained it well. Any Hp gains come from the units ability to make your bike run more efficiently. My bike picked up 2-3 Hp across most of the range. It reduced the size of the dip in midrange power by over half and eliminated all driveability problems. It'll be fun to get a few more mods done this Spring and then have FBF use their tuning link on it. I would expect another improvement in mid range power and perhaps even a bit more on top. I don't want to weight the powerband of my bike all to the top like a race bike, but any "balanced" gains that can be had will be fun to pursue! I'm very happy with the PCIII. The bike runs superbly. Never better!

Janusz You're right. It IS just hardware. You can access the new maps no matter who you buy from. But though I own a computer, it's a huge affair and there's no way it's going out into the shop. I needed the unit "right" for my bike on the first try. Unless the map is designed for your bike including the equipment you're using, such as pipes or air-box removal, you are just guessing by uploading maps to try. I suppose I could disconnect the PCIII and bring it back in the house to re-program. But undoing the wire ties on the cabling and unwrapping the unit (I padded it and bagged to protect the serial port from water and the unit from vibes. The unit is water proof, but the serial port isn't. Being a careful bastard, I wanted to protect the unit as well as possible.) to mess it seemed like a PITA. There is no way to get the right map for your bike, a really "nailed" one, unless someone has already done the work for you or you can go to a Tuning Link shop like FBF so they can personalize the mapping to your bike. Since my PC in the dining room and my PCIII is out on the bike in the shop in my backyard and FBF is 450 miles away, I spoke to Todd at length about it. He delivered the PCIII to me all set up and ready to go. The Dyno runs I did convinced me it was a good improvement over the stock set up. I didn't even bother loading the software into my home PC that came with the PCIII. I have been keeping an eye on old Pentium class laptop PC's on EBay. When I can snap up a good Thinkpad 600 or similar for a good price, I'll jump on it. That'll be good enough to run the Marelli software for troubleshooting the bike, it'll run the PCIII software I have, and it'll run the CNC programs on my lathe and mill after I get the stepper motors installed! For now, I was willing to pay full price to make sure that what I got was plug & play (ride) right outta the box. That's what I meant by "full service" in that post. And Todd was very helpful. He earned it from me! I am "computer adequate", not fully computer literate! But once I can afford a good P200 laptop for the shop, I will be becoming more active in my computer use. I'm looking forward to that! Especially since I have been learning CNC programming at college! Anyone have a old P166 to P233 laptop in good working order they wish to trade for some seat work?

I had one split after 18 months of use. The other was perfect. Better make sure it's a warranty repair though! Mine was turned down since all rubber parts are considered consumables! :finger: (THAT was to MGNA and their screwed up warranty policies.) I can understand tires, but this was just stupid! Here it is! My public vow! I will never buy another new Guzzi as long as MGNA is in charge here. I have had my fill of their BS on warranty claims for two bikes now. Better to just buy a new used one, then fix it up yourself to get it right the first time. I did this with my '89 Mille GT and was a much happier person for it. Then, to make it more fun, the Dealer parts book lists the price of one intake rubber at $78!!!!!!! It may be a mistake, but I haven't been able to verify it. I bought new factory boots from Joe Eish, of Eish Enterprises, in Salinesville Ohio. He charged me less than $10 a piece for them. God Bless old Joe! He runs a great old fashioned shop! They seem to be made of a very heavy heat resistant vinyl. They ARE molded with a thick ring in the middle so when it it is in place the air flow thru the TB to the head is smooth. Straight rubber pipe isn't a good substitute here. It needs to be molded to fit. Some of these boots seem to last just fine. Others seem to rot quickly. Guzzi's rubber parts have been problematic like this for decades now that I have seen.

I understand that K&N has them on a cheap clearance sale right now. But I contacted Todd Egan at his Guzzitech web site; http://www.guzzitech.com/ I bought the PCIII for my V11S through him for $299. But it came pre-loaded with a well proven map made for my V11S including the Mistral pipes it had! Though I had some strange mechanical problems right after that, once solved (A squashed spark plug wire at the left coil and a ripped intake boot.) the bike ran better than ever. 80 HP at the rear wheel, stronger mid range and it now has ZERO driveability issues! Todd spent a couple hours on the phone with me and well as many e-mails handling my questions. I couldn't be happier with the result. It just runs flawlessly! I would contact him to see what is available. The K&N maps may be old ones. I like to save a buck as much as the next guy, but in this case I didn't mind paying for "full service". Once you have a PCIII, any Dyno-Jet Tuning Link Center can dyno tune and exactly personalize the mapping to your individual bike! No guess work, just results! Makes me want to make a field trip to FBF this Spring after the April Guzzi Rally in MD! Ah!... The possibilities!

My "First Gear" Rainsuit is in it's third season of use. It REALLY got used last year! Seemed like I got rained on every time I rode the bike more than a hundred miles. I'd call it a top notch suit.

That window should not be full! I have found that adding the "required" amount of oil to the tranny will over fill it. Then it spits out the vent and finds it's own level. If it is JUST visible in the bottom of the window, then it is OK. I'm considering making a sheet alloy splash-gard for attachment around my tranny vent. I'll look at the this winter when I pull the wheels for new tires.

Gear boxes do not get as hot as engines do to drive off water. Normally, they run just warm to the touch. Once water gets in there and starts forming an emulsion with the gear oil, your box is screwed. The water and the free oxygen in it will attack all bare metal surfaces and pitting can occur. If you even think you have water in your gear box or rear drive, drain it. Then flush it with cheap gear oil and dump it again. Then refill with the good stuff. These vents are known to allow water in. Best to fit them with a better fitting and run a hose up to the frame top and then down and out the bottom. My many years in the engine rooms of ships treating/repairing gear boxes that had been contaminated with salt water still gives me nightmares.

I wish I could afford one. By itself, it's a great piece. Very well done! But I also see other possibilities. It would allow me to make some cut-aways in it prior to painting. The cut-aways would allow me to weld some proper hard bag bracket mounts to the rear sub frame. I see a very nice set of semi-integrated luggage. Silver Givi side cases on a silver V11S! The bracketry fabrication is very do-able! I wish I could make it happen. But I already have a major project I'm working on, customizing my Ural cargo rig. Too many projects, too little time! Bravo on your work on this! It is truly well done!

Here's how I like to treat Guzzi pan and valve cover gaskets: Glue the gasket to the valve cover or the pan side of the surface using a rubber cement like "Gasketcinch". Burnish a light coating of dielectric grease on the other side of the gasket with a finger tip. Now bolt it up! Next time you have to remove it, just pull the fasteners and rap it with a soft mallet. It'll come off cleanly. Do your work and then reapply another light coating of the dielectric grease before you reinstall it. I have easily reused the gasket a half dozen times this way before I felt it looked like it needed replaced. If you keep spare gaskets around in the shop, the ones you're using will last even longer! This was a tip given to me by a good friend and Guzzi mechanic many years ago. It's worked for me for well over a decade.

Pushing 10k on the oem Bridgstone BattleAx 56/57 tires. But I have done too much stright hi speed freeway riding and not enough curves. (There are none around here except for exit/entrance ramps!) They are worn out in the middle and look great on the sides. Great tires, but have been replaced with new models. I'll probably get the Pilot 02 model tires next time and go one size narrower on the rear.

It comes with a spool shaped prop to place under the oil pan. That brings the front wheel up even with the rear. So it does hold both wheels up.

Most of my bikes warts were fairly easy to remove. I have NO issues now with the FI. This bike runs great! Niggling problems seem to keep popping up. In Sept. it was worn out rear wheel bearings and brake pads at only 8K miles. Now it's a ripped intake boot. New ones are on the way. Easy stuff to fix and the bike has never let me down out on the road. It's a blast to ride and makes me grin every time I get on it. I love just looking at it. It's easy to work on. The grins waaaaaay outweigh the frowns, so I keep coming back to Guzzi. My last Honda (1983 Saber 750) would get fouling in the carbs. The clutch slave cyclinder would leak when I stored it during deployments and the bike bored me. My last Yamaha (1983 Vision 550 with full fairing.) had a self destructing starter. Got so I could pull it at night in a dark parking lot in ten minutes! It's kill switch shorted and caught fire. It used to eat speedo cables. All my Japanese bikes overcharged their batteries. I used to have to add distilled water regularly to them. My last BMW (1971 R75/5.) ate it's tach and had unsolvable electrical glitches. Weak ass charging system was useless in the Winter....... When I look back like that over my 12 Guzzi's and 12 "other" bikes in almost 23 years, the Guzzi's are about as reliable, much more durable and are more fun and satisfying to ride. I think I have this flu bug beat now. I'll go for a ride in the morning!

The manual calls for #2 Lithium grease. Common stuff.

I agree with you SN. I fell in love with the looks of the bike in it's stock form. When I can afford it, I'll buy another seat and make a solo version and keep the tail piece attached. (The passenger backrest unbolts from the rack with four allen bolts.) But I love having my wife and family ride with me more than I loved the solo style of the bike! The solo seat lost. I had to make it good for two up riding.

I just got off the phone with Joe Eish. He has the V11S intake boots in stock for $10 each. Not $78 like the parts guy at Winchester quoted me. He also had the V11S Parts Book in stock for $20. He's mailing me the boots and book Monday. I'm not sure what's up with the Dealer's parts book that Winchester would quote me $78 on them. But something is wrong here, because Winchester runs an honest shop. Thank God for Joe Eish! Feeling a bit better today, but still dragging. A 20 minute ride on the V11S did help some!

Remember I'm a ex-nuclear mechanic. We were trained to NEVER say something in a clear and consice sentence when a long-winded paragraph could be used!