• Ciao Guest - You’ve landed at the ultimate Guzzi site. NEW FORUM REGISTRATIONS REQUIRE EMAIL ACTIVATION - CHECK YOUR SPAM FOLDER - Use the CONTACT above if you need help. New to the forum? For all new members, we require ONE post in the Introductions section at the bottom, in order to post in most of the other sections. ALWAYS TRY A SEARCH BEFORE STARTING A NEW TOPIC - Most questions you may have, have likely been already answered. DON'T BE A DRIVE-BY POSTER: As a common courtesy, check back in and reply within 24 hours, or your post will be deleted. Note there's decades of heavily experienced Guzzi professionals on this site, all whom happily give endless amounts of their VALUABLE time for free; BE COURTEOUS AND RESPECTFUL!
  • There is ZERO tolerance on personal attacks and ANY HYPERLINKS to PRODUCT(S) or other competing website(s), including personal pages, social media or other Forums. This ALSO INCLUDES ECU DIAGnostic software, questions and mapping. We work very hard to offer commercially supported products and to keep info relevant here. First offense is a note, second is a warning, third time will get you banned from the site. We don't have the time to chase repeat (and ignorant) offenders. This is NOT a social media platform; It's an ad-free, privately funded website, in small help with user donations. Be sure to see the GTM STORE link above; ALL product purchases help support the site, or you can upgrade your Forum profile or DONATE via the link above.
  • Be sure to see the GTM STORE link also above for our 700+ product inventory, including OEM parts and many of our 100% Made-in-SoCal-USA GTM products and engine kits. In SoCal? Click the SERVICE tab above for the best in service, tires, tuning and installation of our products or custom work, and don't miss our GT MotoCycles® (not) art on the BUILDS tab above. WE'RE HERE ONLINE ONLY - NO PHONE CALLS MADE OR RECEIVED - DO NOT EMAIL AND ASK QUESTIONS OR ASK TO CALL YOU.
  • Like the new V100, GuzziTech is full throttle into the future! We're now running on an all-new server and we've updated our Forum software. The visual differences are obvious, but hopefully you'll notice the super-fast speed. If you notice any glitches or have any issues, please post on the Site Support section at the bottom. If you haven't yet, please upgrade your account which is covered in the Site Support section or via the DONATE tab above, which gives you full site access including the DOWNLOADS section. We really appreciate every $ and your support to keep this site ad-free. Create an account, sign in, upgrade your account, and enjoy. See you on the road in 2024.

unburnt fuel smell

BayareaEMT

Tuned and Synch'ed
Joined
Mar 12, 2021
Messages
41
Location
FREMONT, CA
Hope everyone had a great Easter weekend...

Back to my brethren with one more question for my Cal1400 with 5500 miles.

So far I did two group rides 120-200 miles each and it was a blast to ride. Folks who were behind me told me that they smell unburnt (raw) gas smell while riding behind me.

I picked it up just under a month ago and it came with Aogustini exhaust on it. I picked it up from a dealer, not sure if prior owner had tuned it after exhaust or not.

I also picked up all the parts from SF dealer to do my 6k service including valve job. I suspect that my spark plugs will also be black considering unburnt fuel passing. I will try to post pics of spark plugs once I do that part.

Question here is, what are the things that can be done to solve the problem? I don't see powercommander or any other fuel tuner installed on bike. The dealer who sold the bike (not a MG dealer) said lot of times a ECU can be tuned directly rather than installing PC-5 or such and they said it must have been done because the exhaust was installed at dealer.

I don't notice any issues or backfiring etc while riding. On those rides I have been getting 35-36 mpg which seems really great to me atleast compared to my last few Yamaha/Suzuki cruisers.
 
I have been reading stuff for last 30-40 minutes on this forum as well.

My bike does moan like whale :) for few minutes and goes away. I never park in Sun but whenever it is parked outside for an hour or so during our group ride, when I first sit on saddle I also smell fuel near tank. When I do that 6k miles service, I will look for pinched vent hose (per that moaning whale thread as posted by @GTM) and other stuff too. I want to stay with emissions related stuff so I will not be blocking the vents.
 
Hope everyone had a great Easter weekend...

Back to my brethren with one more question for my Cal1400 with 5500 miles.

So far I did two group rides 120-200 miles each and it was a blast to ride. Folks who were behind me told me that they smell unburnt (raw) gas smell while riding behind me.

I picked it up just under a month ago and it came with Aogustini exhaust on it. I picked it up from a dealer, not sure if prior owner had tuned it after exhaust or not.

I also picked up all the parts from SF dealer to do my 6k service including valve job. I suspect that my spark plugs will also be black considering unburnt fuel passing. I will try to post pics of spark plugs once I do that part.

Question here is, what are the things that can be done to solve the problem? I don't see powercommander or any other fuel tuner installed on bike. The dealer who sold the bike (not a MG dealer) said lot of times a ECU can be tuned directly rather than installing PC-5 or such and they said it must have been done because the exhaust was installed at dealer.

I don't notice any issues or backfiring etc while riding. On those rides I have been getting 35-36 mpg which seems really great to me atleast compared to my last few Yamaha/Suzuki cruisers.

The bike's running good, fuel economy's good. I would check the spark plugs first. If they appear to be burning clean, I would think that the Agostinis may not have catalytic converters, which would definitely cause an increased smell from the exhaust, compared to the stock units.
 
The bike's running good, fuel economy's good. I would check the spark plugs first. If they appear to be burning clean, I would think that the Agostinis may not have catalytic converters, which would definitely cause an increased smell from the exhaust, compared to the stock units.

Anyone has pics on what Catalytic Converter should look like on Cal1400? I doubt that I have any cats there. Good point @FrankZ
 
Anyone has pics on what Catalytic Converter should look like on Cal1400? I doubt that I have any cats there. Good point @FrankZ
It's a honeycomb looking "filter" that would be on the inlet side of the mufflers (each). It does not come on 99.9% of Ago mufflers. Don't go on smell, especially what people riding behind you suggest. Air/Fuel is a science, and yours is likely running on detrimental stock fueling. I offer this; https://gtmotocycles.com/products/gtm-ft-pc-v-at300-ecu-flash-tool -- expensive, but read up here; https://www.guzzitech.com/forums/threads/guzzitech-gtm-modded-cal-14-dyno-vs-stock.13773/
 
Anyone has pics on what Catalytic Converter should look like on Cal1400? I doubt that I have any cats there. Good point @FrankZ

Please look at attached picture. That is what I see on both sides. Not sure if that is the cat. I have seen cat on car but those look totally different than these. These are like flex joint area if I go by my car knowledge.
 

Attachments

  • 20210406_121419.jpg
    20210406_121419.jpg
    53.5 KB · Views: 3
Last edited:
It's a honeycomb looking "filter" that would be on the inlet side of the mufflers (each). It does not come on 99.9% of Ago mufflers. Don't go on smell, especially what people riding behind you suggest. Air/Fuel is a science, and yours is likely running on detrimental stock fueling. I offer this; https://gtmotocycles.com/products/gtm-ft-pc-v-at300-ecu-flash-tool -- expensive, but read up here; https://www.guzzitech.com/forums/threads/guzzitech-gtm-modded-cal-14-dyno-vs-stock.13773/

Todd,

Thanks for the info. I went through details on thread and very tempting to me to go that route. Currently in a cash crunch with only myself having a job in a family of 6 with 4 teens in 10th grade through 3rd year of college. Hopefully things will change soon with my better half getting a better job than she lost. COVID-19 has impacted so many families globally and hoping that things will start getting better soon.

Going by what you say, I will try to remove exhaust (looks like only Ago slip-ons to me) at 6k mile service time and see what is there on inlet side. I have seen cat of cars but never seen where those would be on bikes. Never looked at inlet side of my Raider, Warrior etc I had in past few years.

I'm still waiting on Munroe Motors to give me a call back regarding that red triangle due to key programming issue. While they are programming ECU, I will ask them if they do some tune for a fee to resolve air-fuel mixture.

I really appreciate the amount of help folks get on this forum. It just amazes me about the willingness to help from members here.
 
Going by what you say, I will try to remove exhaust (looks like only Ago slip-ons to me) at 6k mile service time and see what is there on inlet side. I have seen cat of cars but never seen where those would be on bikes.

There's a pinned thread here that shows the cat removed from the front of the slip-on muffler:

https://www.guzzitech.com/forums/threads/c14-muffler-cat-removal.15813/

Almost all of the aftermarket slip-ons for the Cal 1400 (Agostini, Mistral, etc.) do not have catalytic converters. The only one I am aware of is the Guzzi accessory (Lafranconi) ones. Guzzi took the H-D path with the cats and integrated them with the mufflers. Every bike is different; my Triumph Thunderbird and Trophy had a central collector with the cat in it.

If you do remove your exhaust, be sure to add a drop of purple thread lock to the heat shield screws when you re-install. When I installed my Lafranconi exhaust, one was missing, either left out by the last tire installer, or fell out on the road. The Lafranconi exhaust comes with replacement heat shield screws with thread lock installed. I've always wondered how well that holds up with the heat of the exhaust, but I figure the factory wouldn't bother with it if it didn't have some effect.

Dave
 
Back
Top