TOPIC:

I was teasing Joachim mainly as he already has a frame and an engine

Joachim wrote:

Hi

that's what i found
Including more than one pic is not that easy that i thought

ciao joachim

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One of those rumbling down the express road would turn a few heads here in Kano

I think Sal had hers on the road in the UK for a while. Someone certainly did. Raymond used to have two. One of his did a 102 mph lap of the TT course before the inevitable crankcase crack failure (between the main bearing and balance shaft bearing as recall).

72degrees wrote:

I think Sal had hers on the road in the UK for a while. Someone certainly did. Raymond used to have two. One of his did a 102 mph lap of the TT course before the inevitable crankcase crack failure (between the main bearing and balance shaft bearing as recall).

Do you know if that's always the weak point for modified engines and are there any cures to reinforce the case to stop it cracking, ie big steel traps holding it together
I read a post on Gilera.de about a chap who had bored oversized to 640cc but in one of his pictures was a piston marked as 105.5 Dia. that's 650cc and I heard stories some of the Dakar racers went up to 750cc.
It would be nice to know who and how they did what

The crankcase cracking was only an issue once you were getting > 60 BHP out of a bialbero as far as I know. Gary Rowe (nordwest and Spondon/Gilera raced in the Manx and Raymond's tuner were getting > 60 with race cams) had the problem, as well as the usual big bore head joint issues. My 604cc with gas-flowed head and Keihin smoothbore carbs was dyno'd at 55 and despite being bounced off the rev limiter frequently never failed.

Your Norturno only gave 50 so you should be OK

The Paris-Dakar and Pharoahs Rally 750s were a new design. I *think* the tooling sold to Guzzi was only for the original 558 motor. They were going to build an uprated in power version. They never did, perhaps wiseley. Only Giancamerla (SP?) at the old race shop in Usmate Velate had access to the 750s. Raymond couldn't get hold of one for the singles TT Piuma.

I read your article about the 604cc engine in your Nordie and chatted to Richard Albans at TTS, where you did the the head modds (still with standard valve sizes?) Richard is is a plonker and had no memory, Alzheimer again, of your engine work, but he has had my spare ZZR1100 more than a year now, he did have the excuse of getting smashed up on/off a bike though:(
such is life