Harsh Reality Pics - The Black Museum

Bazzee was the first to correctly identify it. Sorry, no prize other than the respect and awe of other forum members. :)

The crossed carbs in the top right of the picture are a good clue. It's a Guzzi V8.

I took the photos in a workshop in Mandello in 2009. This was the bike raced by Bill Lomas, and was (is?) owned by a Guzzi enthusiast in Mandello who took it out for regular blasts on the track (hence the buggered piston). All the engine components are tiny. The mechanic working on it used words such as pistonini and alberini when talking about pistons and camshafts. I didn't meet the owner and the mechanic didn't identify him, but I suspect it's Giuseppi Todero. He did say that the new piston was being made by the guy who made the the originals at Mondial I think. The old guy came out of retirement to ensure that a few new ones were made to his original spec.

I dunno whether the same guy still owns and rides it now. If I owned it, I'd wanna take it out for an occasional track day.
 

Attachments

  • V8 guzzi 1.JPG
    V8 guzzi 1.JPG
    284.5 KB · Views: 47
  • V8 guzzi 2.JPG
    V8 guzzi 2.JPG
    252 KB · Views: 47
  • V8 guzzi 3.JPG
    V8 guzzi 3.JPG
    275.1 KB · Views: 47
Last edited:
They don't make them like they used to.

I think I read somewhere that the crankshaft was a built-up unit rather than one-piece. Pretty complex!

cheers,

bazzee
 
If I can assume that was a dropped valve, I'd like to see the head......they were reputed to be miniature engineering and hard to work on from new.

My only exposure to the V8 was when Sammy brought it to Pukekohe. Sammy and young Todero were wandering the pits and we got into conversation about my replica macchi frames - Good Business! replica frames - we agreed, lol. Anyway the V8 had only run on about 7 1/2 at best so I asked if it still had points. Yes - and 6 volts too. So I told him about Pertronix points replacement modules. You'd never see it had them fitted. He listened.
No idea if they fitted them.

I'm currently waiting for a head to come back from having 4 valve seats and guides inserted. Not as rare as the Guzzi but bloody expensive on current values - which makes it worth doing. Pics of the piston when the camera gets cleared.
 
bazzee said:
They don't make them like they used to.

I think I read somewhere that the crankshaft was a built-up unit rather than one-piece. Pretty complex!

cheers,

bazzee
Click to expand...
I spoke to a guy at the factory and he told me the pressed the crank up in an electro magnetic press and it was the most complicated part of the build to get right. They also made a 350 V8. He also told me the wind tunnel used so much power they used it evening only as it couldnt run at the same time as the factory was working or the town would be in darkness!
 
GregT said:
If I can assume that was a dropped valve, I'd like to see the head......they were reputed to be miniature engineering and hard to work on from new.
Click to expand...

I was told at the time that it was a melted piston crown, but my Italian is pretty basic so I may have misunderstood. It does look like there's more mechanical damage to the piston than a simple meltdown. Maybe a big chunk of piston crown fell out and bounced around in there for a while. I don't recall seeing the valves lying around so can't say for sure. I didn't pick the heads up for a closer look. I figured that would have been taking liberties with someone else's workbench. I can just imagine the fuss if I'd turned a head over and all the valve buckets fell out!

I just found another photo showing the heads and other stuff on the bench. You can see in one of the previous photos that the valves are still in the heads but one of the buckets is jammed down with the springs apparently compressed, so I suspect that valve is bent. The guy with the cap on is the mechanic who was rebuilding it. His name is Francesco. The other bloke was a German Guzzi Club member who's name I forget but he was so excited to be able to hold bits of V8 in his hands that I thought he was going to wet his pants.

You can get an idea of how small the heads are when you compare them to Francesco's hands. The entire head is little more than a hand-span across. The itty-bitty camshafts are on the bench in front of the heads. Francesco picked one up and handed it to me. It's about 8" long.
 

Attachments

  • V8 guzzi 7.JPG
    V8 guzzi 7.JPG
    256.9 KB · Views: 67
Last edited:
GregT said:
If I can assume that was a dropped valve, I'd like to see the head......they were reputed to be miniature engineering and hard to work on from new.

My only exposure to the V8 was when Sammy brought it to Pukekohe. Sammy and young Todero were wandering the pits and we got into conversation about my replica macchi frames - Good Business! replica frames - we agreed, lol. Anyway the V8 had only run on about 7 1/2 at best so I asked if it still had points. Yes - and 6 volts too. So I told him about Pertronix points replacement modules. You'd never see it had them fitted. He listened.
No idea if they fitted them.

I'm currently waiting for a head to come back from having 4 valve seats and guides inserted. Not as rare as the Guzzi but bloody expensive on current values - which makes it worth doing. Pics of the piston when the camera gets cleared.
Click to expand...
The Miller V8 now has electronic ignition- so might well be pertronix!
 
Exmoor beast said:
The Miller V8 now has electronic ignition- so might well be pertronix!
Click to expand...
Maybe - but Sammy struck me as pretty pragmatic. I'd suspect it's from a UK based supplier.
Pertronix are - IMO anyway - the best. But there are a couple of UK firms doing much the same thing.
The ability to actually visit your supplier when doing something as oddball as the V8 would be useful.
 
Well, not as exotic as the V8 - but current values are scary. This one has race history in Oz and NZ.
WSB homologation special. That has been in the wrong hands....
It's been a minefield of wrong parts and wrong assembly. And just when I thought it was all good to go, it dropped a valve.
It now appears the springs are road ones - and the cams are definitely racekit, Not a good combination.
At least a Wiseco was available off the (very dusty) shelf. Single ring you'll notice....
The head is having 4 inserts and 4 new guides in this hole.
The guy doing the chassis has reported much the same problems - incl tweaked forks. It's a roughy. But worth so much it's worth doing right.
A virtual chocolate fish to the first correct guess.
 

Attachments

  • piston broke.JPG
    piston broke.JPG
    106.6 KB · Views: 47
ROFL - I know the guy who repairs the few running Brittens. I actually worked for John for 10 days before falling foul of his Missus
I wouldn't sell her a Burmese cat - she wanted to breed from it. The NZCF has me to thank that there isn't a Britten cat breed....
Around the same era though.
 
You mention race kit/ road springs so must be a production road bike derivative with factory race kit. Guzzi Daytona had race kit available but would be smaller bore, unless 1225cc ( would that be legible for WSB rules down under?) but single ring makes me think Ducati 888 maybe?
 
Exmoor beast said:
You mention race kit/ road springs so must be a production road bike derivative with factory race kit. Guzzi Daytona had race kit available but would be smaller bore, unless 1225cc ( would that be legible for WSB rules down under?) but single ring makes me think Ducati 888 maybe?
Click to expand...
Not Italian, sorry. Visibly not a 5-valve either.
 
BobSol said:
Honda RC30
Click to expand...
Correct.
It has heads done by the Hallam bros in period. Etched with a pictogram a kiwi working for HRC in Japan has translated as
"Brown eye racing" Hence the Aussie connection....
Blocks decked so far that the pistons had to be machined for squish clearance.....front inlet cam in the rear bank - but turned around to line the gears up. Which meant no oil got into the cam as it feeds from one side only. And timed wrong so bent valves as received.....Just as well it wouldn't run.
The cam isn't a problem, the lobes are symmetrical so running backwards works. But through drilling the oil hole in a hardened cam was fun.
Mr Honda did not want his cams f***** with.
 
Exmoor beast said:
If the blocks have been decked how did you cope with reduced cam gear mesh?
Click to expand...
Thicker head or barrel gasket ?

Think I would go for the Barrel Gasket providing you are not kissing the Valves - Could be half in half, providing were you took the metal off.
 
Last edited:
Exmoor beast said:
If the blocks have been decked how did you cope with reduced cam gear mesh?
Click to expand...
The gear casettes can be shimmed inside the seating areas in the heads to get mesh right with the crank. Then the cam carriers on the heads can be shimmed to get the mesh correct with the cams....All done through trial asemblies with no valves fitted.
The barrels are of course in one piece with the top case which makes changes in squish clearance shall we say...difficult.
CNC machine centers are wonderful when it comes to piston crown adjustments. All 4 pistons have had the squish areas machined and the valve cutaways deepened.
Assembly is a breeze too....Valve stem seals, then head bolts in place. Then cam carriers bolted on - with any shims necessary. Then insert valves and springs.
The head bolts are accessed via holes in the carriers - big enough for an Allen key. The valves and springs trap the cam carriers on the heads.
If the cam carriers had been made two piece - instead of one large casting - it would have been so much easier....

But this is why an old guy in a shed gets to work on one. A modern shop simply isn't interested in doing this stuff.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top