pete roper

Dave! C'mon. How about a sense of humour transplant? Please! Pete

I think a lot of it has to do with expectations. Many people who ride bikes want them to sound the way they do. In the case of Harley riders in particular they want their bike to be loud and, to a degree, obnoxious, because it indicates to ordinary, eveyday people that they are serious dudes who need to be taken, errrr? seriously . Most of the ones that sound really awful are actually tuned absolutely appalingly! Remember that for ears now the carbureted bikes have been non-adjustable, as far as idle mixture is concerned which means that the 'Bleating Budgie' or whatever they're called pipes only have the function of making more noise and not actually doing anything for the state of tune. I suppose the theory is as long as it keeps running and makes the right noise to keep the punters happy that's all that matters. It may even make a bit more power being less restrictive but if it was tuned right it would make more power again but that really isn't the point, is it? I'd also hazard a guess that the fact that all HD's are very long stroke motors would have a bearing on the noise emmited after the exhaust valve opens but I'm not an expert on either phonics or harmonics so I can't say for sure. At the end of the day one man's meat is another man's poison. That noise does nothing for me and when I get a pack of look-a-like dolts running past the end of my street all making as much racket as they can, simply because they can, it's a real pisser, but on a scale of things it's pretty unimportant compared to issues like the Iranians producing fisile grade uranium or Robert Mugabe murdering his country's population by stealth so I let 'em get on with it. I'm just sorry that they are so worried about the size of their penises, it's not like we can actually do anything about what we're born with and girls don't really seem to care very much anyway. Perhaps they are all gay after all Pete

Sorry, I gotta agree. It's just another clever bit of show-offy munt for dipsticks with too much money and not enough sense. I can't for the life of me see any benefit that wouldn't be outweighed by the extra weight. I think the counter-rotating mass issue is a furphy too, compared to the weight of a wheel and tyre I'd think the rotor mass would be comparatively small, (although all the gears and shit would increase it considerably.) and it's closer to the wheel axis so it's effect is going to be minmalized by that. It's also worth remembering it's the gyroscopic effect of the wheels that prevent you falling over! You've got to have some mass in 'em or your machine would be unrideable. At the end of the day even if id did *work* who needs it?????? Pete

Greg, lurking around in the shed I've got an adaptor with the take-off for an electronic, analog, oil pressure gauge. I think I've also still got the gauge somewhere too? I'll post 'em over if you like. The only issue is that the guage is damped so even if you do get a sudden drop in OP it will probably be no more useful than the oil light, (Which the adaptor keeps.). Go and hassle Enzo. If he no longer rides the Cobra pinch the windage plate out of it and get it copied, better yet copy it and send one to me so I can replicate 'em. While expulsion of oil doesn't seem to be such a problem on spineys the other benefit of running a plate as I'm sure you realize is that it will act as a surge baffle and help prevent the dreaded pick-up exposure and boundary lubrication horrors that can occur with the broad sump bikes. Enzo did some good stuff with that bike, I would of liked to have stayed in touch but I just found the whole 'Jewish Conspiracy what about the Protocols of Zion?' bullshit too tiresome on the 'Crows' and when you bailed out I did too, . I think with the oil starvation thing prevention is best achieved by trying to keep the oil up near the pick-up, some sort of baffle plate would seem like the cheap and easy option. If you want difficult and expensive build a real windage plate with scrapers and re-locate the pick-up, (Yeah, like right, we'll do that this evenin' with a six pack, some bailing wire a bit of mild steel off-cut and a hacksaw and bastard cut file, Not! ) Pete

I have to admit I didn't look at all of 'em but a random selection seemed to indicate they were roughly all of one *type*. Look, I have nothing against oggling titters, despite what the lunatic fringe seems to think I don't actually think that slobbering over attractive pics of the opposite sex is either unhealthy or un-natural, neither do any of the sensible women I know including my good lady wife who is quite capable of doing slobbering of her own if the situation calls for it . Especially blokes seem to like a good perve, I'm no exception, I just always find it funny that the archetypes are always so conservative in their appearance, (And no, I don't need any of Tex's cellulite mostrosities exhibited to prove me wrong! ) Pete

Dave! They're ALL bloody white! Or as close to it as makes no difference. Where id you pick that lot up from, the KKK site Pete

51 years and 7000 quid. I'm bloody glad I'm not a soddomite Pete

"ARRRRGH! No! Stop it!" Noise made by perpetrator when he has a rusty barn hinge pushed up his/her arse sideways! Bastard! They could of least of fessed up! Pete

I'd like to get one of those stickers the new bikes have on the tank that says 'Una Storia Italia' for my helmet. I wonder if you can get 'em separately, I expect so Pete

Steve, I too wouldn't want one, but for all the people who seem to be obsessed with geting an antedeluvian bit of shit to make 100BHP some sort of forced induction would seem to me to be the only feasible way of doing it and there *is* fun to be had by revving the ring out of a Guzzi. My little hot-rod was built with exactly that in mind and I got 84RWBHP out of 891cc @9750RPM which i thought was pretty damn good for an old roundfin. As I've said before I tend to think that the horses on the dyno I used had remarkably short legs but even so taking that thing up through the gears was an absolute joy, what killed it was oil pump cavitation and I got fed up with doing big end shells on a regular basis. Then i realized it was a cop magnet, and THEN I realized that i wasn't getting any younger and it was a sure fire way for an ageing wobbler like myself to kill myself so I gave it away . Do I miss it? Not a bit! But a piped up and correctly fueled Griso will give me similar power with a slightly heavier bike and it'll see out my riding days. That doesn't mean that for those who are chasing that magical, (and to me completely meaningless!) 100BHP figure forced induction, especially on a ery revvy motor, wouldn't be the way to go. Pete

Dave, did you notice the bore/stroke figures? That thing is just going to LOVE to be revved! I'd be looking at beefing up the rods and valvetrain and ensuring oil delivery was up to it then I'd go chasing revs! On a two valve hemi a motor like this is where forced induction really begins to look like an interesting possibility as you need the revs for power but cylinder fill at only 14PSI will mean that the VE will drop right off at higher RPM. Stick a supercharger on it with some sort of wastegate arrangement that will not start delivering much boost until the VE drops off and then kicks in and you could have a recipe for something that would be awesomely funny to ride Pete

I have to believe that this must be a problem with the US importer? Our mob seem to be pretty good. They have a pallet of 80 CARC drives sitting in Sydney NOW for the recall on that and all of 'em will be fixed within a few weeks as long as owners bring 'em in when the recall notices go out. I can't understand why the US system seems to be so dreadfully inefficient????? To my mind even the idea that dealers like MI or MPH would stiff a customer by cheaping out on parts is insane. These blokes own, ride and love Guzzis, as do many other dealers with good reps like Detroit Eurocycles, Speakers, Harpers, etc. Obviously all of us in the trade are in it to make a living but the reason people like these stick with them has a lot to do with passion as well. They could make lots more money selling 'Ondas and stuff but they stick with Guzzi. Why, well, apart from the fact they're obviously certifiably insane, they obviously reckon they're a bit of all-right. All things man made will have problems occasionally. If they are made by slack-arse Italians in the foothills of the alps chances are there will be more QA issues than with a product built by automata in some thoroughly up-to-date factory elsewhere in the world but that doesn't mean that it's a bad product. Quite often people seem to think that mechanics and service managers have this unique ability to a.) see through metal, and b.) psychically be able to recgnise a problem simply by standing next to a misbehaving piece of equipment. The unfortunate thing is that this isn't the case. Some lucky people are born with a 'Greasy Thumb' which does mean they have a seemingly unerring ability to pick a fault and fix it almost instantly with the minimum of fuss. For most of us though it has to be a process of ellimination as you check off the symptoms against your knowledge and understanding and this can take time. MI are changing out the duff CARC bearings for their early Breva customers pre-emptively, even though not all of the units are going tits. There will also be replacement units supplied and, no doubt, fitted as a warranty thing and at short notice. Given that the dealer 'Cut' on a new Griso f'rinstance in Oz is about $3000AU I'd guess that providing that sort of service to customers in Seattle isn't going to give a huge profit margin on any machine! With a V11 that has torched it's BE's and (?) rear main there will be a warranty payment from the importer but warranty work pays sh*t. OK you can break even on it and maybe even on some jobs turn a profit big enough to justify the time in a fiscal sense but believe me Dave isn't going to be giving Greg a huge pay-rise on the basis of a torched V11 I think that to suggest that dealer or his spannerwacks might be trying to pull a fast one is patently barmy, (Although I'm not saying that was suggested, simply that it's the sort of weirdo-conspiracy-theory-net-nuttiness that goes around!). It'll be fixed, I'm sure that all involved are a bit pissed off and upset that it's occured but life isn't perfect and sometimes sh*t happens. When it's right again and all is good and you're flogging through the Cascades in July all will be forgiven and forgotten I reckon!!! Pete

Given the fact that I'm proud to say that there were probably a handfull of Mandello workers there when they strung the bastard up and the whole lakes region was a hot-bed of anti-fascism I'd say that this is in extremely poor taste. Having said that it has to be remembered that most people a generation, or in some cases less, old than me see the lessons of the 20th century as pretty old hat. My feeling is that they are poorly educated and ignorant, that doesn't mean that they won't have to repeat the sad lessons of history all over again. I just hope I'm far enough removed that I die before the repercussions of such stupidness come home to haunt me. of course my kids will have to cop it Pete

(Groan!) Told you I'd been out in the sun too long!

Correction. I orignally said the engine capacity had increased 80%. This is, because, as my daughter has so eloquently pointed out, I'm stupid . 700 to 1064 is about 28% (roughly!) but the power has doubled. This makes my crazed rantings a bit more inteligable I hope. I'm off to bed. N'Night! Pete. (Hard day at the office dear?)

Oh Boy! A lot of traffic on this subject since I went out this morning! There are lots of issues raised that need addressing and I'll try to give my opinions on all of them if I can over the next couple of days BUT. Two things. 1.) I want to keep this amicable. If anyone starts setting themselves up as an oracle it makes the whole discussion pointless. We should all remember that. 2.) The original V7 produced 35 BHP. The latest V11/Breva variants produce *roughly* 80bhp. Although the engine has increased in capacity by about 80% the essential architechture remains the same. That equates to a major increase of HP for capacity. You don't get that without trade-offs, no matter how much materials may of *Improved* over the years. Mike Rich's 10.25 to 1 static looks a lot more feasible to me as a worthwhile opinion with pump gas than 11 to 1. Add in the fact that Mr Rich seems to actually LIKE Guzzis and care I'd suggest that his pistons along with decent porting mods will probably offer the 10% improvement with few downsides that so many people crave but longevity WILL suffer. It has to. That is dictated by the laws of physics so unless you are one of those barking mad fanatics who believes that God has given you a 'Note from Mum' that allows you to bend the laws of the natural world you're limited to the same parameters that the rest of us poor mortals are, and that means that if it makes *more* of anything it will wear out faster. Whether you accept that wearing out as acceptable or not is obviously very subjective but it will happen. I'm not saying that getting 10% more power will lessen your engine life by 10%, in fact depending on a lot of factors it may be a lot less, or a lot more, but there will be a trade off. Anyway, I've been standing in the sun all day talking bollocks about Guzzis. I've come home, I've got a beer on the go and I'm going to sit and relax and NOT think about motorbikes for a few hours Pete

Nah! In Darwin they use Dugong fat. It's got a higher viscosity rating so it works better in the hot climate. The other Darwin, writer of 'Origin of Spieces' spent a large part of his youth travelling the world and exterminating things in a quest to find the perfect lubricant, the treatize he wrote that got him into so much trouble was purely a subterfuge to get the emerging mineral oil barons from Texas off his back . Pete

Roller rockers probably would help but you will still get some side force exerted. To be honest I don't know. It's not something I'd ever seriously considered. Carillos are very good rods but contrary to what people think they can, and do, snap. This is not to say they are a bad product from this point of view. They are made for high performance, racing type, applications. Sorry, but in these situations rods, like everything else, are seen as consumables. I had a set in my hot rod, they were lovely, no complaints, but every time I had the rods out I had 'em re-sized. A mate here recently stuck a set in his Mk IV motor. I sent everything down to Baz in Melboring for ballancing and one of the brand new rods was 1 thou out of round on the big end, the other was 1/2 a thou out of round. Anyone who takes my personal opinion as gospel needs their head read! I'm just another boof-head who happens to like Guzzis. I probably have a lot more experience with them than most but most of my work is maintenance and mild hop-up work for the road. I'm not a U-beaut tuner or a terrifically succesful modifier of motors but I do know the basics of internal combustion engines, a bit of metalurgy and know what tends to work with what in relation to our old donks! Oh, Yaks are out of season at the moment, you have to harvest 'em at the end of summer when they're fat and well fed to get the best Yak fat. At this time of year it's prefferable to head north and club some seals for blubber . Pete

Dave, as I've said I'm all for trying to get *more* but there ARE limitations. Look, if I can get a crappy old V7 Ambo to detonate on *standard* gas when it is timed up *right* using a degree wheel, not the horrid marks on the pulley and it will still detonate if provoked using 98 octane then I don't see how you could prevent it on something like a V11 motor unless you do stuff like retard the spark, run the mixture too rich or whatever which will be counter productive and will REDUCE power. OK, so when the revs get up and the volumtric efficiency falls off there will probably be a benefit in terms of power BUT it will rob tractability lower in the rev range. Certainly modern engine management systems are a LOT more sophisticated than an old single points dizzy and a pair of crappy old 29mm VHB carbs but what is happening in the combustion chambers, (Which on the V7 and the V11 are, surprisingly, a very similar shape!) will remain pretty much the same in the V11 as it was with the early roundfin. Wilder cams impose a much greater strain on the valvetrain than a softer one. I've seen enough flogged out valve guides in hotted up motors to be able to say categorically that using something with a profile like a 620 x 8 will neccesitate new K-lines in a race bike at least once a season. That equates to only a few thousand road miles. How many people actually want to pull their heads off, (If you get my drift? ) every few thousand miles and have major restorative work on them? Tappets and rockers also take a pounding in these situations. I'm NOT saying that people who want to shouldn't try and tune their bikes up, far from it. All I want is that they go into it with eyes wide open. I'm sorry but some things simply aren't achievable, no matter how much people want them, and a reliable 100RWBHP from our engines is NOT achievable even with Carrilo rods, (which incidentally have a much shorter fatigue life than many other products and (ahem.) are sometimes a bit less than accurately machined.) and don't even THINK about Titanium. Don't believe me? Go to the Arrow website and see what the service intervals are on their Ti rods! You'll have kittens! I did! All the other things like ceramics etc. will help but they will be hellishly expensive and the higher the state of tune the less pleasant the machine will become to ride, (After a certain point of course.) Look, I like tuning things up. Our race bike is the current NSW period 4 PC champ. It's a LONG way from being a standard LeMans/V7 Sport! But would I want to ride it on the road? No way! Conversely setting up the chassis correctly is generally fairly cheap compared to engine work and it will allow you to fully explore all the potential you already have BEFORE you go in and start working over the motor. Certainly people like Mike Rich are much smarter than me when it comes to dragging power out of engines. I don't dispute that for a minute and if you do go down the tuning route I can think of nobody more qualified than he to be of help. I personally think that it's putting the cart before the horse. I'm NOT having a go at anyone here, I'm simply expressing my views. I'm certainly not expecting everyone, or even anyone, to agree with me but it IS how I feel about the whole business. That's all. No accrimony, no rudeness or insults, simply the way as an individual I see things Pete

I can understand why people like the idea of heavily tuning their Guzzi motors. For starters, compared to something like a Jap 4 it's comparatively cheap and you can get *improvements* of one sort or another pretty easily. BUT, (there's always the but.) what consistently astounds me is that people seem to be quite happy to spend substantial amounts of time and money making their motors more powerful, (and less reliable!) but entirely neglect their chassis and suspension . I'm not suggesting that all the folks here who are rabid about getting more power out of their engines are guilty of this but it's extraordinarily common and it doesn't matter a fat rat's how much power you have if you can't use it and get it to the ground effectively. Playing with spring rates, damping oil viscosities and compression and rebound damping until you get everything working to the very best of it's abilities will pay much higher dividends than getting another 10HP out of your motor. If you're really keen you can rollerise your rear shock eyes and stick decent grease nipples and seals on all the linkages, (OK, no linkages on V11's but the Breva has them and the Griso.). Modern brakes are pretty damn good as well but if you want to you can start saving ounces in unsprung weight by going to diffrent rotors and if you're insanely rich you can go for aftermarket wheels! All of these things will greatly improve a machine and the rider's enjoyment far more than more power. To my mind the 'Brag Factor' would also be pretty high. Probably not as impresive as a dyno chart though I don't think either I or Ratchet are suggesting that people shouldn't tune the buggerance out of their motors? (Certainly all I'm trying to do is offer a caution as to what can be realistically expected.) That's a choice entirely for the individual concerned. But you have to accept that the simple laws of physics and engine design parrameters mean that you CAN'T get over 100 BHP, reliably, out of an ancient 1 litre capacity, air cooled, shaft drive twin. I'm sorry. It simply isn't going to happen. Even a well set up 'C' kitted Hi-Cam will struggle to make 100hp and the costs in terms of longevity are very high! As for the R1100,(or whatever.) BMW making 120? Oh look! there goes a squadron of pigs Pete.

But Dave, this is what I'm trying to say. They can't, at least not with the current engine. It simply isn't possible for them to get more out of it in it's current guise and retain any semblance of reliability. Likewise they can't increase the capacity appreciably further because the physical constraints of the crankcase won't permit it. If they did a complete re-design of the case they could increase capacity but why would an already cash-strapped company bother doing that when the writing is already on the wall for big, air-cooled engines? It would be madness. Even if Guzzi do launch a fantastic *new* bike with a *modern* motor it isn't, at least in our riding lives, ever going to be a world leading manufacturer in terms of sales. They don't have the production capacity and you can't just say 'Abracadabra!' and magic one out of thin air overnight even if the money was available! I really want to see Guzzi do well and I trully hope to see a new generation of inovative, stunning looking, engineering to come out of the marque, even if it is no onger built in Mandello. But I'm also sensible enough to see that this will NEVER be achieved with the current powerplant. Despite what the brochures say you're average stock V11 motor will produce low to mid 70's HP. Well tuned ones are usually producing in the low to mid eighties. Are you really expecting that with ever more stringent emmission controls somebody is going to find a huge, miraculous, rabbit to pull out of the that that will suddenly overturn 130 years of development of the IC engine and a good 50 years of pushrod driven hemi head motors and give us 20% more HP? If having the words that say that the motor produces 100HP is so important? Well, just say it ! Who really cares apart from the sort of dweeby social inadequates who judge themselves by 'Facts' they can show other dweebs on bits of paper produced by advertising agencies! If people are interested in Guzzis, really interested, they'll go ride one. They'll either be astounded that they haven't discovered something so much fun before or they'll shake their heads in horror and run away screaming! At the end of the day those people who DO like Guzzis will like 'em regardless of what the figures are. I've just done a clutch and gearbox job on a V7 Special. It produces probably 38BHP max, it's a lovely resto though and as someone said in another thread, it's a bit of rolling art! I rode it into town, (A 45 mile round trip.) today and it was bliss. Even though the forks were horrific, the rear suspension was naff and it was happy at only a paltry 80mph it had that most important of *motorbike* things, it had the *feel*, it had the *sound*, my god, it had *SOUL*. Even the later model ones have that, although IMHO it's been watered down and made bland. Thats what people who buy Guzzis, (At least now.) go for, not HP, not razor sharp handling and very rarely even pose factor, (Although I was posing like buggery on the V7 ). They buy them for the feel, and more or less HP won't make a smidgen of difference to that. What does the sticker on the tank say? 'Una Storia Italia'. A bit of Italian History, and one that we can all afford! Pete

While I tend to agree that given half a chance the company would probably try and deny responsibility I don't think it's likely to be simply because they see the CARC issue as dangerous and the clutch issue not. Having one of those Scurra clutches/flywheels come hopping out of the bell housing at speed would definitely be an underpants-soiling experience . Also replacing the CARC unit's must be very pricey as they've sold a LOT of Brevas and not a few Grisos now, the only thing being that swapping the CARC wouldn't take as long as doing a clutch on a spineframe but there are probably a lot fewer bikes around with the duff clutches/flywheels. I too find it extraordinary that there hasn't been a recall on the flywheels but what can you do? Pete

I was being attacked? Time to up my geritol so I notice next time . Honestly though I'm more than happy for people to disagree with me on most issues as long as they aren't barmy, ignorant or dangerous. I find people who claim that they can get a munty old Guzzi motor to poduce 120BHP RELIABLY a bit tiresome. I'm sure that if you got everything absolutely RIGHT you can get 120hp out of the two valver, at the crank! But I'd also think that a motor in that sort of state of tune would last only a very, very short space of time before it needed major work. It would also be an absolute PIG to try and ride, wouldn't idle and I'd think it would probably have huge fueling issues, especially with the standard pump and injectors but I'm no expert here. Actually your suggestion of smaller valvesis, IMHO a good one. The smaller the valve head the smaller the rocking motion imparted to the valve by the rocker, well, not quite but it's moment is lessened as the C of M of the valve is further up the stem. So you end up with better cylinder fill where it matters, (especially if you get the valve back shape right.) AND less wear on the valve guides. Win-Win situation! Freeing up the airbox is also a fine idea, that pair of weedy little intakes just behind the headers on V11's are awful. The Quat-D does nothing for me but that's just my likes and dislikes. I'm told they work great, Paul would know I'm sure. There are plenty of ways of carressing more enjoyment out of a Guzzi. Brutalising it by taking the Big Stick approach to the engine is, IMHO, one of the more fruitless and frustrating ways of going about it. YOMV. Pete

Coming from Yorkshire you'd have to get the coal out of it first I would of thought? Pete

Just what the country needs! Anothe 'Clog Wog' Mate, despite what the tabloid press will try and tell you we welcome ANYBODY here. They took me for f*cks sakes . Where are you going to be based? I can certainly point you in the right direction for Guzzi knowledge and help once you get here and I'll try to steer you clear of the wankers and charlatans. If you're in Sydney or Southern NSW make sure you drop in, with or without wives, girlfriends, kids, whatever. We're always happy to help out new migrants, ESPECIALLY if they are Guzzisti! Pete