You lose some/you win some.....

Having been well outbid on one really nice 1100 injected Cali3 lump last
week on ebay, I won another lump and collected it today. I now have a spare
Spada 1000 engine (the early round barrel one with steel liners) sitting in
my garage. A quiet day on ebay, I netted it for £165.00.
The strange thing was that the bloke who I got it from looked very familiar
but I just couldn't place him.
Turns out he'd bought some Guzzi spares from me about 13 years ago! He did
have a *very* nice collection of Guzzis in his garage too.
<Droooool, envy, lust.etc....>
Now to dust of my spare Lemans frame in the back garden and start building
yet another Guzzi 1000. Or will it be another trike...mmmm....

JB

 

<whine>

 

Best check your final drive oil.

 

*snort*

I flogged the spare XS650 engine (running, in lovely order, and shown to
be so before the cash was handed over) for £300. I see someone recently
sold a completely Halco-rebuilt lump, complete with carbs, coils,
wiring, exhausts - basically an entire power train - for £340, so I was
quite chuffed.

 

Nope. I had the bike in one lump, and I put in the auction page that
this was a condition of sale - you could hear it running, and then help
me get the lump out of the chassis. Takes less than an hour on an XS650,
if you know what you're doing and there are two of you.

And then I could break the rest of it.

Used motors are such a lottery - everyone *always* says they're
excellent, and a lot of people lie. I figured that by demonstrating that
this engine was A-OK (as it was, with only 15,000 miles on it) I'd get a
decent price for it. And so it proved.

 

<dribble>

Fucksake, I'll have to keep an eye open for something like Halco barrels
and pistons.

 

The oversized steel liners you can get knocked up yourself. The pistons Tony
used were nearly always Mahle. Alf Hagon used to do some excellent
conversions for the XS650 mostly based on forged Mahle 2-ring piston kits,
although much higher compression ratios were and aimed at higher end power
than the low end grunt of the Halco grass-track engines. I've had several of
both and finally settled up with a hybrid of the two.

JB

 

You wouldn't happen to have a spare Le Mans engine? Specifically the
pistons?

Please.

 

I haven't, but I'll ask the guy I got my engine from. I know he's got about
4 spare 850T3 engines though. What year/bore size & nikasil/iron liners?

cheers,
JB

 

I'd be very interested in this.

The compression on my T3 has gone west and reads 95 and 110 psi; should
be nearer 150 - 170psi apparently. No. 1 suspect is rings

I thought I'd put in LeMans pistons and heads. If you can get me a price
for LM pistons, barrels and heads I'd appreciate it. Unfortunately I
don't know, yet, what bores I have. I guess 850cc Nikasil.

Is he Wiltshire based?

Do you know if the T3 and LeMans heads different, aside the valve sizes
and manifold screws?

Could anyone with a copy of "Guzziology" let me know what it has to say
on the subject?

I have two pairs of good T3 heads, I'm hoping they'll go some way in
financing the conversion but I have no idea of their value.

 

Yes, I can see that would work, especially for a race engine where
you're selling to SWK (probably).

Not so good for people who just want to drop a lump into an existing
chassis, of course.

 

I'll pick up a set of standard barrels soonish then and keep them ready
for a rebore. What's the practical maximum bore size they can take,
commensurate with readily available pistons?

 

You'll have to get new thicker liners fitted to the standard barrels as even
at 700-750cc they get very thin, to the point of heat distortion causing the
piston to 'nip up' when used in anger. Hagon may still have a few old sets
of liners and possibly be able to point you in the right direction for Mahle
piston kits. Another good source for this kit was in the USA. Don Vesco used
to tune the nuts off these older yams.

JB

 

Cheap enough to find out.

You may have steel liners.

The T3 and Spada heads have 30mm inlet ports with 3xM8 bolts fixing the
manifold. The LM1/2 heads have approximately 36-40mm dia inlet ports and
3xM6 bolts on a wider pitch fixing their manifolds.

£60-£75 the pair assuming good valves and seats. £100 the pair with good
rocker gear and rocker covers.

JB

 

Mike's XS in the USA looks good, and he has a distributor in Germany and
another in Holland.

 

Do you have any contact details?

 

Emailed.

 

Cool, ta.

It seems though, that with the demise of Halco and the general numbers
of XS650s slowly diminishing, the bike's becoming less attractive to
tuners and the availability of tuning parts will surely go down. Any
that crop up on ebay and the like will be snapped up sharpish, iwt.

That's why your idea of linering it myself appeals.

Still, you never know. Somebody might have a nold tuned lump lying
around somewhere for peanuts.

 

Find a grasstrack sidecar meeting and ask around. This is where I got my
mental old 1153cc Halco lump from.

JB

 

Worth a try; thanks.