pete roper

While the answer has been given thread gauges are very cheap and easy to acquire and always useful to have in the toolbox. https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_trksid=p4432023.m570.l1311&_nkw=metric+thread+pitch+gauge&_sacat=0

I just cover my naked self in baby oil and glitter, tie a brilo pad to my knob and writhe all over the motorbike. It may not clean it up a lot but it guarantees that the space surrounding it is empty and devoid of admirers so as long as the bike works who cares?

Different dyno, different circumstances, (We’re about 800m above sea level.). Most Dyno operators like to stick a finger on the scales because people want bragging rights. I’m not saying that is the case with your experience but I’ve ridden a lot of ‘Hot’ Guzzis and I’m afraid that most of them tell a similar story, despite dyno charts, receipts for work or anything else. I’m not doubting you or your enjoyment of your bike I’m just saying I won’t believe it until I plant my corpulent arse on the seat and pull the go handle. You may note I never make any unusual claims for 8V’s I’ve been involved in making as good as they can be? That’s because they are what they are. The V11 motor is very hard to pull a lot more reliable performance out of. That’s what makes ‘The Mighty Scura’ such an extraordinary bike. But as I said, its peak power is probably not much more than a stocker. But its rideability is extraordinary! I had nothing to do with its build, I just owned it and had a very memorable trip across the USA on it. If your bike is like it you’re a very lucky man.

In my experience a stock V11 will make about 75/6 RWHP if tuned correctly. The hairiest one I ever rode was the Mighty Scura I sold to Chuck. That probably didn’t make a lot more top end but bugger me drunk it was a torque monster! Bottom end and midrange was just phenomenal. Far better than any 2V Guzzi had any right to be.

Interesting to revisit this after so many years. I’ve learnt so much about the 8V since those long gone days and the fact is that opportunities for extracting more power out of it are few and far between. A stock 8V makes, on the Dyno I used for years, which was run by a bloke who liked it calibrated pessimistically in the interest of being honest, made 96RWHP. Screwing around with air filters etc. achieved nothing apart from rapid throttlebody wear and the stock airbox and filter work fine although removing the snorkel from Grisos and Stelvios will give a small lift in bottom end torque. With decent mapping and the right pipe, with a dB killer installed you will be able to keep the delightful flat torque curve and lift the RWHP to about 100 +/- three or so depending on state of engine, atmospheric conditions or whatever. You can increase the maximum hp if you use the right pipe and remove the dB killer and map for it. Not by a lot and the most you are likely to be able to get is 108-110 but in doing so you will sacrifice bottom end and midrange. Those limitations are imposed by the head design and there really isn’t a lot that can be done about that. Yes, there are people claiming much higher numbers than those. The laws of physics though don’t change. The fact is any 8V Guzzi is a big, heavy and ultimately not very powerful, (By contemporary standards.) motorbike. As I’ve said before. Love them for what they are. Not what they’re not. If you want *More*? Buy a Tuono!

Don’t forget to make sure the trunnions are correctly aligned if you separate the shaft or if it hasn’t been removed before during your ownership.

Yeah? Who or what is a Kevin Cameron and what relevance does he have to the discussion? Mind you, it’s an oil thread so best just ignore it…..

It always amuses me how people spend thousands of dollars on GT snake oil and then, despite their bike being so wonderful, want to sell it and get something else. The second one has traction control! Amazing! Very rare ‘One of a kind’ machine there!

Sorry, never saw the replies to this. End of the story is that a bloke from Victoria turned up, with a case of ‘Crankshaft’ and took it all away. He wasn’t the first to ask though. There was a very typical ‘Guzzi Guy’ from NSW who called first. Wanted me to send him an itemised list of what I had, preferably with part numbers! How about ‘No’! I said if he wanted he could look at it and decide. Then the whining started about how I lived so far away, (I was about 170km from him.) and then the ‘Icing on the cake’? ‘Crankshaft was ‘Too Expensive’ and would I take a case of Tooheys, (A shitty mass produced commercial swill I only drink under duress!). At that point I cordially invited him to get a colossal, wooly, black pup up himself and told him I’d be taking it to the tip the next day and if he didn’t like it he could go swivel on something sharp! He told me I was rude and unreasonable and he’d make sure *Everybody* heard about it! “Behold the field in which I grow my f*cks! Cast thine eyes upon it and see that it is barren!”

Yup, cleaning was the third one. Phil gets a golden elephant stamp!

What are the three functions oil performs?

I use good oil from a reputable company. My engines, or gearboxes, or bevelboxes, rarely go ‘Udders Skywards’. If they do it is very unlikely to be the fault of the oil. Case in point. My recently acquired Mana GT has a 10/40 specified. As I expected it wasn’t filled correctly because, being a semi dry sump engine people can’t get their heads around the fact you have to fill it more than once. Consequently it was almost a litre down. Not a big deal, it has plenty, but I refilled it with what I had lying around which is the 0/20 used in my Suzuki Jimny. It hasn’t blown up yet……

I have a whole ‘Chamber of Horrors’ file of pics of Alloy timing gears and alloy/steel composite sets. None of them are, or were, ever worth a pinch of shit! Criticising them has led to threats of violence being made against me by mentally unstable and drug-fu*ked individuals so I tend not to say anything about them nowadays beyond just advising strongly against their use. I’ve spoken with Joe about these gear sets though and we’r in complete agreement. You wouldn’t use them in a lawnmower! Much less a motorbike!

Why do you think that swapping to pod filters will provide any benefit? I’d advise against it personally.

If the brakes haven’t been bled for an age the main piston seal in the master cylinder may be collapsed and not sealing properly.

I’ve now retired but my offsider is now running the business and we were/are capable in working on Guzzis built this century. We’re just up the road from you.

@#!#$# it off immediately. Tune the bike properly and if needs be remap it but those things, sold under a variety of names, are poison as you have found out.

I’d say that while yes, it is a ‘Western World’ phenomenon it is generally more of an anglophone western phenomenon, certainly my experiences in non-English speaking cultures in the last couple of decades have generally been more favourable. There is also the simple matter of history. History and sums! For the last half millenium at least western culture has been, both geographically and politically dominant. The historical narrative, at least the one most people absorb, is western and Eurocentric. Now other countries and cultures are becoming wealthier a proportion of their citizens will want to travel and when you are looking at countries like China and India with populations of over a billion a piece it doesn’t take many as a percentage to mean that their chosen destinations will become overwhelmed. Throw in ‘Our’ own boomers who have retired and want to see a bit of the world, often in a cocooned and ‘Safe’, ie, familiar environment that never takes them out of their comfort zone and it all turns into a rapidly evolving train wreck! I don’t think that the majority of these people are bad or unpleasant. Just boorish impatient and demanding. The way Jude and I tackle it is probably a bit unusual in that we try to avoid big ticket ‘Name’ destinations like the plague and if we do want to go somewhere where you know it’s always going to be insanely busy we go, as we do in most places, in the depths of winter as this tends to thin the tourists out a bit. On top of this we like to go to, and actively prefer, to stay in poorer, less developed and smaller towns and villages. Apart from the fact locals in bars and restaurants are always fascinated by WHY these strange, little old white haired pensioner people have come all the way from Australia to their little turdpoke village in Abruzzo or wherever! Then they want to know if you are on first name terms with their cousin in Griffith in the Riverina in NSW or their son Claudio who is a waiter in Adelaide etc etc ! In the UK we only drop down below the imaginary line we’ve drawn between the Bristol Channel and the Wash to visit relatives as anywhere below that line is an overpriced zoo with far, far too many people, most of whom think they are terribly special and are crying out for a good ‘Throat Punch’! Above the line things are infinitely better. There are still pockets of asshattery and some of the cities are really grim after 45 years of almost uninterrupted Tory destruction but the population density is way lower, it’s cheaper and the locals, (Outside the grim cities.) are friendly and helpful. It is also the cradle of the Industrial Revolution with history and museums to die for. The countryside, even in mid winter when it can be pretty bleak, is beautiful and once you get into Northumbria and Northumberland and thence on to Scotland the geography and landscapes are simply breathtaking. There is plenty of interesting Roman history to tickle my fancy in the borderlands areas and once into the highlands the austere magnificence is hard to beat although the lack of trees in the far north can cause issues! In January on one trip we were travelling around the A9 across the top of Scotland and had picked up some picnic vittles in Wick. After nearly getting stuck when it stated snowing the weather cleared and we continued but Jude got a bee in her bonnet about finding a picnic table and eating out of the car. Somewhere just west of Thurso she spotted a side road with a sign depicting a picnic spot so we hung a right and went down to the small rest area on the coast. It had a beautiful little beach, (Surprisingly devoid of naked Germans because as you know wherever you go in the world if you find a nice beach it will have some ageing banker from Düsseldorf and his hausfrau lying around with their kit off! Even in Scotland in January!) The absence of trees though belied the fact that it was in fact blowing about a force five gale! As we gathered up our meal of some cold cuts and proper English Cheddar the sun broke through the clouds and shafts of sunlight speared down onto the snow covered Orkney islands to the north, it was like the dawn of the world and stunning to behold! When we got out of the car though the gale was all too apparent but my darling helpmeet insisted we go and sit at the table, which we duly did and I set about hacking up the Baguette I’d bought in Wick. Jude unwrapped the 1/2 Kg of delicious cloth wrapped cheddar and sat it down on the table just as a particularly strong gust of wind hit, picked it up and sent it whistling off in the direction of Stromness never to be seen again! One assumes some lucky guillemot or puffin probably dined well that day! Anyway, after that even Jude thought discretion was the better part of valour and we retreated back to the car! And continued our trip! Sure, in the summer it would have been warmer, the wind would probably of been gentler and we might of got to eat some cheese! But at the same time the A9 across the top of Scotland is in some places only a single lane road with passing pull-offs. In summer it would be gridlocked with morons towing caravans and other assorted mouth breathers! We were probably lucky to see two cars an hour! Anyway! Enough. My main message is pick the ‘Wrong’ time to travel and you’ll find it’s likely to be the ‘Right’ time!

Actually he was misquoting me I think. My original description was ‘two cheesegraters fornicating in an iron tank’ but imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

Met up with Mark today and asked him about the map/file sizes of the respective ECU’s. The 7SM which was a pretty complex device is apparently about 720Kb. The MP11? How does roughly 3.5 Mb sound!!? That’s a LOT of information!

On that subject of ‘Factory Mapping’ even on *Older* machines it was quite possible for factories to build decent maps if they put their mind to it. My Manas, which use the same W5AM as the CARC series Guzzis have always fuelled up impeccably. There were two or three ‘Map updates’ issued during the manufacturing life of the bike and I’m not even sure if the updates had anything to do with the fuelling as none of them seemed to make a lick of difference to fuelling or fuel economy and they always fuelled up perfectly. Why the early maps for the 8V CARC bikes were such a clusterf*ck is beyond me? It shouldn’t of been that difficult.

I don’t even know if there is a dedicated Cali 1400 forum or club so I can’t advertise there so here will have to do. If any Oz. Members know of anyone with a Cali 14 please point them my way. When we built Beetle’s 1400 single spark Griso motor I bought a Cali 14 wreck to use as the starting point. I still have a grab-bag of parts left for it none of which am I ever likely to use and can’t be bothered to sell and list individually but they include a petrol tank, (With fuel pump.) side covers, swingarm, headlight, various other lights including at least one of the LED tail lights, a rear wheel with disc and tone-wheel, footboards, various parts of the exhaust system and who knows what other old munt. It’s just clogging up my garage which is already stuffed with Grisos and Aprilia Manas and I want it gone. Come and take it all away and leave me a case of Bent Spoke Crankshaft or it goes to the tip!

Yet another advantage to the older ECU’s, you can do it all yourself with a couple of cables and some freeware. Unless they actually download the map and analyse it how are the EPA going to know?

Nope. Thing is before reading that puff piece on ABC Local I’d never heard of that particular myth. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-06-29/captains-flat-hotel-reopens-sharanne-witt-southern-nsw/104018176 Back when the mine was open things could get pretty wild at The Flat. Floating Schooners would be the least of the problems I’d think!

It’s 1.15PM and 4*C right now, and drizzling. Yesterday was sunny and 12*C at this time and I got a nice shake-down run in to Captains Flat on my new Mana GT. It won’t be getting a gallop today! Rides just like I remember my one in the US did with all its luggage on. Just fine. It really is a superlative little lightweight tourer.