While it's apart...

Back in December, I collected another 749R from Italy. Max sold me his lovely F05 Ducati Corse built bike.

Originally built for Lanzi for the 2005 season, this bike was used by Nannelli at Caracchi to win at Imola.

I'll post more pictures later, but the bike has the later Microtec ECU, data logging with potentiometers and Lambda sensors and controllers.

The lambda sensor is visible above. It measures the exhaust gasses in real-time and trims the mixture to suit. The same system was fitted to the 996RS, but this system uses one control box for each cylinder, rather than the one for both cylinders fitted to the 996.

The first thing I did when I got the bike (the motor had been refreshed and is good) was to check the suspension. For me, this is one of the most important parts of the bike - look at the rear tyre above: the damage is purely down to incorrect suspension setup. If you're buying an race bike, check the basics: spring weight, compression, rebound... On this bike, the spring was too soft for  light rider, forget about me! On the 749R rocker, the spring should be a 120. This is the second bike I've seen with a lighter spring and resulting tyre problems.

Moving to the front: Marzocchi internals wre fitted. The springs were really hard with way too much compression damping, resulting in a wooden ride from the front and a pogoing rear. It's good now!

So, I took this bike to a track-day recently at my local circuit - Brands GP. I wanted to prove the bike as it was the first opportunity I had to ride it properly. We eventually got it through noise testing (the db killers didn't fit this exhaust, so we had to swap the end-can from the red bike to this in the morning), but when it was time to go out, the bike went onto one cylinder for no apparent reason, so back to the red bike, which meant swapping the cans again, putting dry tyres on the red bike and going through noise testing again...

When I took the plug out of the vertical cylinder, I found a small quantity of ferrous metal in the combustion chamber. I checked the usual suspects: valve guides and plug but they were all intact. THe piston rings are new and are unlikely to be causing problems at this stage as the motor has run for ten minutes and only at tick over: rings are most likely to break at high revs. There was no metal in the airbox or the exhaust ports, so the cylinder wasn't venting rubbish. I need to do more checking, but it looks probable that the metal was contaminants from the plug well.

Anyway, I had to take the bike to pieces to get to the cylinder and while it was apart, I took some pics.

This is the trumpet (cornetto if you're Italian) for the front cylinder. These are kit items and are higher than the stanard part, increasing top-end power. 

The rear:

This is the steering damper mount. Different to the road unit, it locates where the steering lock would be. I cleaned up the frame there specially for this pic!

This is the other end of the steering damper mount. Most race Ducatis use an M8 bolt for this rather than the standard M6. If you're offered a steering damper from a Ducati Corse bike, check this.

This is one end of the quick release fuel connector. It locates onto a fitting which is directly mounted on the tank. To remove, you push that vertical face and pull the connector off. To fit, just push it back until it clicks into place. Foolproof.

A selection of titanium fasteners removed from the bike. Even the exhaust header bolts are ti. The Dzus are beautiful.