Ducati Sporting Club UK > Sport > Trackdays & Race Schools > Donington yesterday 22/11

[yeti]

Took a chance with the weather to give the new bike a shake down at Donington yesterday. Arrived at a sensible time, only to wait till the ice thawed on the circuit. Eventually around 1030 they finally let us loose with dire warnings of damp patches and ice in the lee of the auction building and the pit complex!

First impressions were sadly not good. The thing has a horrid flat spot/misfire that only really clears above 6500 rpm. Not good when you are trying to be ever so careful on the throttle, and a real b*****d exiting the Melbourne hairpin! Ran the first couple of sessions with the quickshifter switched off, simply to have one less complication. It’s pretty obvious that the fuelling is all over the place, yet I am assured that Marelli themselves sorted out the software and helped with the mapping when it was on the dyno.

After a couple of sessions, I could start to get the feel of the bike, and a definite dry/thawed line was developing so started to open it out a bit more and run it into the rev limiter at 10.5k The shifter was a revelation! Being able to keep the throttle pinned while simply tapping down on the lever was gaining me yards on bikes with conventional gear changes. It took a while to re-educate my right hand into not shutting off, and some of the initial changes were a bit hard, but a subtle change in lever and footpeg position sorted that out.

Another problem that did manifest itself was a tiny brake fluid leak that was leaving fluid inside the screen. Fairly certain it’s a combination of weeping bleed nipples on the calipers, and maybe a dodgy jubilee on the reservoir. So new bleed nipples and crimped connections are the order of the day.

Given that this bike hasn’t turned a wheel in anger for at least 6 years, I was pleasantly surprised how few problems we had during the day. Simon Reed very kindly came down to offer advice and an extra body, whilst Elaine kept us topped up with hot soup and coffee. Boy was it cold at times.

So it’s into the big shed for the winter and a bit of detective work to track down someone who can set her up properly. It runs a Marelli MAR600 ECU, so finding someone with the knowledge to set her up properly might be a problem. First line of questioning must surely be to Mr Hackett to see what he has to say about the matter.

Roll on next year……………

[desmojen]

Did I miss the thread where you announced your new bike then? Lets have some pics!!

[JPM]

Sounds like you had minimal fuss then John, just a few issues to sort which don't sound too bad, plus you've got all winter to sort them

[Felix]

What kind of water temperature did you get up to? Remember that you need to get above 65 deg C in order for the fueling to work. Below that, it won't run well at all. With the race radiator in this kind of weather, I expect you'd have to tape up at least half of it to get any kind of heat in the engine.

Also, why is the rev limiter so low? Should be around 12k. The race engine get to another level between 10 and 12k.

[Jools]

Originally posted by desmojen
Did I miss the thread where you announced your new bike then? Lets have some pics!!

Yeah...Wot is it? Sounds exotic!

[skidlids]

John I was wonderingif it ran an ambient air temperature sensor or does that Marelli MAR600 ECU have programmed values that are altered in accordance with the temperature taken and entered by a technician.
Either that or as Felix says was it getting hot enough.

And come on out with it what does it look like and whats its full spec

[BDG]

I'm with Jen on this one, what bike is it?

The suspense, come on spill the beans.

Weeping nipples hey, must the the cold

[yeti]

Sounds of things it wasn't getting hot enough. Highest temp I saw on the dash was 52. Given that, I may just run it again on the 5th and try the gaffer tape trick this time see what happens.

The MAR600 does take an input from the right hand air tube where there is an ambient sensor mounted in the airflow.

Mark from BSD was watching yesterday and didn't seem to think it would be a big deal to sort out. One thing was very clear, it pulls like a bloody train above 7k right up to the limiter at 10.5k. I definately need to move the rev limit upwards.

Pix to follow

[BDG]

Pix to follow, but we want to know what it is NOW!

[yeti]

Originally posted by desmojen
Did I miss the thread where you announced your new bike then? Lets have some pics!!

Its a late model 996R(S) very similar to Felix's old bike. In fact I sent a load of pix to Felix before I bought it - just in case it was his old bike. Long story where it came from, but to be brief it was being built up by a chap to put on the road as "Q" bike, but he couldn't get it through SVA and lost interest.

It's a full Corse motor with all that implies, decent suspension FG9760's, radial monoblocks 60mm Ti system, Marelli dash etc etc. Will post some pix later on.

Didn't announce this one Jen, just sneaked out a bought it. Been looking for a good while now, and this one seemed to offer most of what I wanted without the expense of a full on RS stretta