An Enginerds life with a 2003 Aprilia Caponord Rally-Raid ETV1000 (2008 – 2024)
A double post today ….. the details have just been posted for 2015 – 7th ACIM (Aprilia Caponord International Meeting) and it’s to be held this year in Nafplio, Greece on the 10,11 & 12th July. A lovely bit of news that brings a touch of warmth to a cold and snowy day!
This is a colaboration between apriliacaponordim.blogspot.it, aprilia.mototouronoffroad.it and apriliabikers.gr so visit these sites for more info.
Post updated (21/01/2015)
Having chipped away through almost 1/3 of the parts I got last week, I started on the speedo sensor …… unfortunately t’was deader than a Dodo. That presented the perfect opportunity not only to measure it for posterity – but to strip it apart and see exactly how it was constructed. In this case as you can see from the photograph, the sensor (Honeywell 1GP7001) is completely buggered and split at the sensor head …. marks in the body suggest it may have been water damage.
All this leads to the idea of a re-usable speedo sensor, that could be re-orientated for use not only on the Capo, but also the RSV and Tuono. Here’s a MK1 idea using the same Honeywell sensor (about £15/€20) and a few nice stainless screws for that macho-Meccanno look! The idea is that if the sensor subsequently fails, you simply unscrew the case top and solder in a new sensor – bingo! Back in business in 10 minutes flat. 🙂
So is it worthwhile following this up do you think, or should I resign it to – nice idea but ……?
And lastly, the chap in l’Aquila got back to me this week and offered me this pair of little beauties for €50 plus postage. 😀
Apparently the tyre is original and will require removal with dynamite or a thermic lance and the rim has a little scuff damage along the edge (about 5 o’clock in the pic), but I’m sure that can be taken out by someone more competent than I. I’ll have a nosey around the UK over winter and take the wheel back over with me in spring.
When the wheel arrives I’ll model it up, then look at various colour schemes that might (or might not!) complement the fudge/biscuit paint of the Raid. – not that I’ll ever get them done, more just a ‘what if I had dosh’ excercise unfortunately.
We all like a bargain ….. more than ever at this time of year judging by the British press (Black Friday), so I have to admit I had a grin like a Cheshire cat as I rode back home late Saturday in the dwindling light and rain. Why?
Well on Friday, while some folk lost all sense of self-respect fighting over 40″ TV’s and coffee grinders, I’d stumbled across a fresh advert on a small online marketplace. A couple of calls later and I’d arranged a trip over to l’Aquila the following day, to bag myself a lovely load of Caponord spares for the princely sum of ….. well let’s just say we never got out of double-digits! Here’s a breakdown of what I got from a low mileage 2005 ABS model:-
ABS pump, mounts, sensors and wiring loomIt also transpires that he may well have the swing arm as well – €15 to you guvner and €5 postage …. I’m just waiting for the confirmation and that’s my birthay present sorted! 🙂 Unfortunately, no wheels/discs. They’d been sold along with the forks for (wait for it) €150 ……. 🙁
So after stripping the throttle body and ordering up new seals, I decided to model up the manifold/injectors. Click on the injector picture above to open the fully exploded manifold and below are a couple of views of the whole assembly.
April 2020 – sadly Aurasma was bought out by HP (Hewlett Packard) who have now closed down the whole thing.
Once again I’ve been playing ….. this time with Aurasma. No sniggering at the back!
Another augmented-reality app that does video and 3D, admittedly the 3D isn’t as good as Augmented in some ways, but in others it has definite potential. For this little magic show, you’ll need to download the app (Android) to your phone and (on your PC) go to the website and open a free account. Then open the app and tap on the white triangle in the bottom/middle of the screen, now tap on the search (magnifying glass) and search for ‘moto-abruzzo’ then on the next screen tap on ‘follow’ in the top right hand of the screen …… and your done!
Now click on the sprocket above to open a larger version on your screen, point your phone’s camera at it and watch Aurasma do its stuff! Impressive eh? 😀 A basic model of a Sunstar 16 tooth front sprocket animated around two axes. Unlike Augmented which is VERY expensive after your 14 day intro, Aurasma is free (for now) – and we all like freebies. I think I’ll start porting my CAD/3D library of Capo parts over in the New Year and see how it goes. 😉
If you gave it a go, please leave a comment. Any feedback thoughts or ideas on how best to use this with reference to our beloved Caponords is always welcome.
Have fun!
(AR) – Augmented Reality, the overlaying of graphics, data etc. on real-time video or imagery. Nothing new really, it’s been done for years ……. but not in my back yard it hasn’t!
I’ve been playing with an Android app called ‘Augment’ which in combination with its website, allows 3D models to be uploaded and then selected from your smartphone and overlayed/inserted into the real-time image from your phones camera. These stills and video were taken after uploading a basic model of a pannier/water bottles I knocked up last year. The bit of paper in the pannier frame is a target I printed out from the website – it’s this that the model is oriented and locked on to.
And here’s a couple of stills taken via the app. I must say I was bloody impressed with how well it stayed in position … I could move round to quite severe angles to the target before it lost position lock. Even moving the camera around quite agressively didn’t seem to phase it much.
Since playing with the pannier, I’ve tried a few more models – coils, various brackets and brake caliper bits …. it’s fantastic fun just sitting at a table looking at various Capo parts over a cup of (real!) coffee.
One thing’s for sure, irrespective of how many miles you’ve travelled or how many years you’ve had that dog-eared licence in your pocket, you never stop learning. Sometimes the lesson hurts, sometimes it’s so subtle it’s easy to miss and sometimes the lesson leaves your blood-stream swimming in the hormonal avalanche from the Adrenal medulla. You know what it’s like, you’ve been there yourself – a close call, a near miss, a white knuckler, call it what you will …. and you know how it brings a fresh new perspective to the day!
Yesterday I went back to school ………
Scrubbing off speed, I approached a mini round-about where I needed to double back on myself to enter a hardware store car-park. It was a beautiful sunny day with just the right amount of breeze and all was good in my little world. Down a couple of gears, a tickle of brake and I’m eye-balling the ongoing passion play of traffic already negotiating the roundabout as I started to roll in to the left, but immediately it all went horribly wrong. The turn was too shallow, I was spiraling outwards – the steering wouldn’t turn to the left!!
Instinct (or more likely blind panic 😯 ) had me kicking in a heap of counter-steer to abort the left turn before I ran into the oncoming vehicles – swinging the bike away to the right with the left pannier a hair’s breadth from some poor sod’s pride and joy. Pulling over with my heart fit to burst, I tried the steering. Full lock to the right – fine, but it locked 
solid 20-30° to the left. Peering over the handlebars everything looked OK, no loose bolts in the triple-clamp …… nothing. A Scooby-Doo mystery for sure!
As I was putting it on the main stand, I heard something fall from the bike. Looking down I found this fella, an innocuous little GoPro thumbscrew. Eyes snapped up to the GoPro wireless-remote mount on the left handlebar, the thumbscrew was missing. It had worked loose during the journey and bounced down into the bowels of the steering mechanism waiting for the right moment to wreak havoc …… and it very nearly got away with it too (if it hadn’t been for you meddling kids! – A little Scooby in-joke!).
The lesson? Firstly make sure I do things up properly! 😕 Secondly make sure that ANYTHING added to the cockpit / handlebars can’t work loose and interfere with the steering. Sounds obvious, so obvious I haven’t given it a second thought in countless years of riding, but 
as an ex-RAF engineer I should know better than most the catastrophic implications of our old arch-enemy FOD (Foreign Object Damage). Complacency is no excuse ……. From now on ALL GoPro thumbscrews will be tethered!
In this instance only my pride took a bashing, but it could have so easily been much worse – hero to zero in a heartbeat. Today I’ve had a whizz around the bike and checked that everything is tickerty-boo, put in a new thumbscrew and nut and said a bunch of Hail Marys just for good measure! But how about you …..
…. are YOU 100% sure that nothing can foul your steering / suspension or drive chain ….. And is that luggage really secure? 😉
When I checked my phone this morning I noticed that the TuneECU app had updated to v1.2 overnight ……. somehow I guess I’d missed it update to v1.1! Anyway, with a few minutes to spare I hooked up to the Capo (cable & Bluetooth) and noticed that the ‘Neutral’ light is now working – a bit sluggish, but working none the less, which is an excellent step forward. Now all we need is a nice new screen with the sensor data, plain text like Tuneboy would be fine ……. please Alaine. 🙁
I had one of those emails the other day, you know the sort – trying to sell you a domain name at a grossly over inflated price. I hovered over it just long enough to catch the domain name before launching it into the trash. But then the bells started ringing somewhere in the dusty recesses of my mind …… I know that domain, ETV1000.net – home of the French Caponord forum!
Well the long and the short of it is that the domain expired on 20th July and was in fact in the last 5 day window (Pending Delete) so would be released any time now. Rather than let it go to one of these places that hog expired domain names and use them as advertising sites, I took a chance and as luck would have it – bagged it yesterday!
So I’d love to hear from anyone that knows what happened to the site and more importantly, where are the French Capo owners meeting on the internet? If anyone in France wants to resurrect the site, then shout up through the contacts page, I’m sure something can be worked out.
Oh and thanks whoever you are … without the junk email I would never have known about this! 😉
I’ve known Manuel Hitz, owner of Motrag for over 18 months although we’ve only met once, at ACIM VI in July. At that fun filled weekend we looked around many bikes and discussed the pros and cons of many upgrades – as well as our own. Manuel was keen to show me some of the items that Motrag make and sell, he then asked if I would try a set of his fog/spot light brackets* and compare them to the Touratech ones currently fitted on the RR. ‘Why not’ I said, ‘It would be jolly rude not to!’. And so a parcel arrived last week. 😀
Let’s start with the outgoing Touratech brackets – each has 4 parts, 8 fasteners and weighing approx. 300g. They are actually made for the Mk1 Caponord and not the Mk2, although the modification to fit them is simply a matter of bending the front mounting tab and drilling a fitting point in the fairing. However having to drill out the rear mounting point was something I hadn’t anticipated. The hole was probably a perfect fit for the screw – before they added the powder coating, certainly not after! Overall the fit/finish is average, (presumably) laser cut 4mm aluminium plate bent to shape and slapped with a coat of satin black – sharp edges, cutting marks and even a ding in one plate left for all to see. The lamps sit very close to the fairing making cleaning a real headache unless you remove the brackets each time, on a plus side however; they are well protected in the case of a fall. 4 years on, the finish is peeling away and they have started to look shabby, so I’m glad to have the opportunity to remove them.
Bottom line – Expensive and build quality/finish is average at best.
The Motrag brackets each have 3 parts, 6 fasteners (plus a plastic pin) and weigh in at approx. 360g**.
Opening the box was a pleasure. Each bracket wrapped securely, fasteners (all stainless steel and just like the OEM Aprila fasteners in appearance) were bagged and labelled for their intended location and last but not least a set of clear instructions and a parts list.
Fitting the brackets involved no drilling or cutting at all and they were on and aligned in less than 30 minutes – ok, the lamps were already wired in of course! In comparison to the Touratech brackets, the lamps sit slightly wider apart (approx. 25%) and slightly higher with adequate clearance for me to get behind them when cleaning the bike. The flat top of the lamp bracket lends itself very nicely to being used as a mount for my GoPro camera, something Manuel is keen for me to try out – so keen if fact, he sent three lamp brackets – a spare for me to drill for the camera mount!
OK so far … a bracket’s a bracket, heck as long as it fits and doesn’t look naff what else can I say? Well let’s save the best for last, the finish, THIS is Motrag’s ace-in-the-hole! Each bracket is exquisite, no sharp edges, no machine or cutting marks in sight. This kind of attention to detail is something we’re just not used to seeing nowadays and it pays dividends …..As the old saying goes:
Proverb: Don’t risk the failure of a large project by trying to economize on trivial things.
Says it all really! And so to the bottom line – Excellent fit and finish, well documented instructions and nice attention to detail with the fasteners adding that OEM look. But you know I’ve been thinking, wouldn’t it be nice to either tweak the design, or offer a seperate bracket so that a pair of discreet DRL – Daytime Running Lights could be fitted in the space below the lamp … over to you Manuel! 😉
Anyway, that’s about if for the initial impressions, I’ll add a new post in 2015 when I’ve had chance to bounce the brackets up and down our road and put them through winter weather to see how the finish holds up – my guess is they’ll do fine. That just leaves me to thank Manuel for kindly sending the brackets for review, we agreed it was to be fair and without bias, if I didn’t like something – say it! All good so far …….
I almost forgot – Manuel also dropped another little present in the box for me, a sexy new cap for the coolant bottle in blackest black, not sun-bleached grey. That little baby has got to be worth an extra 5mph! 😉 AP8104124 if you want to do this speed enhancing upgrade.
Notes
*Both the Touratech and Motrag brackets are designed to take the Hella DE spot(Xenon) or fog(Halogen) lamps. Motrag supply the lamps/brackets as individual sets for the left or right, so you can mix fog/spot combinations as you want.
**These are a prototype set in 2.5mm steel and not the production 3mm aluminium, so they are slightly heavier.
A week ago I downloaded the TuneECU Android App, spent a few minutes scrolling through the screens, then sat back and waited for Mr Postman to deliver a USB3 OTG cable for the Samsung Note 3 and a Bluetooth module from Ebay.
Here we are a whole week later and I’ve used the App successfully with both connection methods. Indeed the App is stable and remarkably quick and easy to set up connections and seems to take no longer than its PC sibling to communicate with the ECU. I didn’t experience any drop-out when starting the engine with either method and map Read/Dowload via cable seemed on a par with my netbook. So far, so good…….
……. Now for the downside.
Those of you that have used TuneECU(PC) will be familiar with the three modules it contains – Map Edit, Diagnostics and Tests and I ask you which of these modules are likely most useful in a day-to-day situation? In my books that’s the Diagnostics/Tests ….. why would I want to remap a bike from a smartphone for a start, let alone mess with mapping while out and about commuting to work or heading off for a summer jolly. Mapping is best done at Dyno time, in a workshop and let’s face it, once done probably won’t need revisiting for a long time, only engine/exhaust mods or ECU replacement come to mind.
So my wish list is for an App with full Diagnostics/Tests, the stuff that may well help me at the roadside, that will show me an intermittent coil when the ECU hasn’t triggered the EFI light or generated a code and other information that the simple dashboard diagnostics just doesn’t display.
Unfortunately it’s here that the App falls flat. As much as I swiped and tapped I couldn’t find a screen to show me the sensor data – Injectors, Coils, Air Temp, O2 sensor, Barometric etc . In fact the display doesn’t even show me Neutral, Fan or Side-stand …. All familiar sights on the PC version. So I dropped the author Alaine an email. And this was his response.
There is no sensors page shown in the App, maybe this will be added in the future. The Fan and Side-stand lamps are not written into the software and yes there is a bug with the O2 graphic display. He hasn’t come back to me yet about the missing Neutral lamp.
So that’s it …. An interesting novelty App, unfortunately nothing really useful to offer as a diagnostics tool while out on the road ……. For now the cable and Bluetooth module can find a place on a shelf somewhere, while the trusted Asus notebook keeps me company with TuneECU 1.97 doing what it’s always done – and doing it very well!
I’ll end by saying that since the Capo was ported to TuneECU back in October 2010, I’ve used it extensively even though I still have TuneBoy on the netbook. Alaine is to be applauded for his work in bringing a great piece if software to the bike world – for free. So I feel uneasy writing a negative review of the App, but in the end I’ve tried to be as honest as I can about its abilities with regards to the Caponord. Maybe it’s having far more success among the Triumph fraternity, I don’t know.