The 1098S race bike

The 1098S race bike
A Ducati 1098S street bike converted to a race and track bike.

söndag 13 maj 2012

First track test


First track test went well with only one small incident. My daughter Vendela, 1.5 years old, spends a lot of quality time with her older brother Valdemar (3.5 yrs) and dad in the garage fixing our bikes.

Apparently she wedged a plastic toy tool in between the headers. During the first stint we had some smoke and weird smell from under the engine, exhaust pipes get hot and plastic toys melt easily. Kids….

Otherwise everything went very well. Great start and a great bike!

Thanks Martin for the pictures.

lördag 5 maj 2012

Done!


Finally, all parts arrived from the paint shop and another just in time project wrapped up.  First track outing this Saturday.

onsdag 25 april 2012

Tire pressure



Having the correct tire pressure is an important factor for good grip and long tire life. My friend Casey brought this top quality tire gauge from the US. He almost always have nice gadget for me in his bag when we meet on business meetings. Cold you ask more from a colleague?

Intercomp is supposed to be the best gauge you can get and when I compared to my cheap old gauge to the right the Intercomp showed 1.9 bar and the cheap yellow gauge indicated 2.0. Quite a difference!

Glows in the dark too for night use.
 
http://www.intercomp-racing.com

onsdag 28 mars 2012

First test ride




Spring time and first test ride. Hopefully I didn’t annoy my friendly neighbors to much when testing everything out. The power delivery is very different compared to the old 998. I think I wheelied all the time….
 







All that is needed now is the fairing to be painted and then go for the first track outing.

onsdag 15 februari 2012

How to mount front brake and clutch fluid reservoirs?

When you, like me, are using a pure race brake master cylinder, then the original mounting for the fluid reservoir doesn’t fit.  I have never been able to find a good alternative so I copied this design from a friend of mine. What you need is a small piece of alloy, make it “z” shaped, drill a hole in the upper front fork triple clamp and fit an M4 bolt. Just remember to use thread lock.


 
I have had this design on my previous Ducati race bikes. One particular feature that I like is how well protected those reservoirs are when you crash. And yes I know from personal experience. :-)

Cost efficient, works well and I think it looks good too!

söndag 5 februari 2012

Suspension and geometry update



Recently we installed the suspension parts that were modified by suspension and set-up guru Jocke Jansson at FJJ Racing. The made-in-Japan front fork was apparently quite useless stock and had to be heavily updated. Almost all internals were replaced or updated. Jocke manufactures or modifies most parts himself and is quite experienced in Ducati 1098 set-up. Sadly, the only good thing with this fork is the top-out spring design, which after heavy modification guarantees a very nice feel during the first part of the stroke. My 40 N/mm top-out spring will balance the 100N/mm fork spring giving 60 N/mm initial spring force.  Race-shims set up and stiffer springs of 100N/mm (stock 90 N/mm), more or less replacement of all moving parts including the lower compression adjustment needle (se picture) will hopefully do the trick at the front.
Rear shock absorber seems to be a different story, all that was needed was a service, race shims set-up and a stiffer spring (90 N/mm vs stock 80 N/mm). Jocke told me that when visiting a BSB race (British Superbikes) he found out that several teams preferred this model compared to the more advanced Öhlins TTX.
 
In the picture we have the FJJ tool for rear ride height adjustment in use and it is quite interesting that Jocke´s  proposal for  a set up for me is 4mm higher bike at the front and approx 15 mm higher at the rear. I have only tried the bike a few small runs on the street and have no idea at all on how it behaved on the track, but will of course start with his proposed set-up.

The 1098 requires a front tyre with a fairly strong carcass and he recommends Pirelli SC2 slicks.

fredag 9 december 2011

It's not if you crash, it's when...


.
When I stopped by Ducati Stockholm the other day, I found this GBRacing Secondary Engine Cover. We all know that when you fall, the water pump cover almost always get’s destroyed and that the engine cases also gets damaged or at least scratched.

 
This cover is easy to replace, seems very solid and thick, I’m sure that can handle more than one crash, and compare to the cost of an engine casing it’s not expensive.
For sure easier mount and replace compared to similar Carbon fiber / Kevlar & Billet Aluminum covers solutions. I like details like the pre-drilled hole for the safety lock wiring of the oil filler cap (red arrow, first picture abowe)