Saturday, November 21, 2009

Top 5 Ways to Beat Winter Withdraws

1. Buy lots of parts—ship them to a friend's house, you don’t want to get in trouble with the wifey
2. Bookmark products that you can’t afford to buy—mmm BST wheels
3. Polish and repolish—now I am out of micro fiber cloths
4. Compulsively watch YouTube videos—this is a good one: http://ow.ly/EmCU
5. Be a troll on ducati.ms—great place to ask “what type of oil is best?”

Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Top 5 Dumbest Ducati Crashes


#1

#2

#3

#4

#5

Saturday, November 7, 2009

G2 Throttle Tamer Review

As you may recall, I installed a more aggressive throttle cam at the beginning of this season. One of the only drawbacks to the new cam is that the on/off throttle response is jerky. Per chance, I stumbled on the G2 Ergonomics site, and read about their “Throttle Tamer.” The Throttle Tamer replaces the linear cam on the throttle tube with a progressive cam. In this case the cam is less aggressive than stock for the first half of throttle opening, and the same as stock for the second half.
The installation was easy, and took less than ten minutes. The hardest part of the installation was getting a 10mm wrench to fit between the horizontal cylinder and the radiator when adjusting cable slack. The Electraeon throttle cam that mounts on the throttle bodies is smaller than stock, and the G2 Throttle Tamer is in essence slightly smaller than stock, as such the throttle cable is nearing the end of its adjustment. When it comes time to replace it, I may consider getting a custom cable made that is slightly shorter than stock.
I wasn’t sure what to expect on my test ride, as I don’t think I’ve ever ridden a bike with a progressive throttle. But, I am happy to report that the throttle pick up is very natural. Further more, the G2 Throttle Tamer cured 99% of the jerky on/off response. In fact, I won’t pursue any other fixes (e.g. tuning). Thus far the only downside I can see is that the slight increase in the distance from fully closed to fully open. It is, however, still much less than stock. On the other hand, now that the throttle response is more manageable, I can proceed with my plans to add a lightweight flywheel.
It’s worth mentioning that both the quality of the product, and the quality of the service (both phone and email) that I received from G2 Ergonomics easily meets my criteria for excellent.
Visit G2 Ergonomics: http://g2ergo.com/




Tuesday, November 3, 2009

Ducati Needle Bearing Disaster: Part Two

In theory replacing the clutch slave, pushrod, and pressure plate is an easy job, but putting in a new needle bearing is a tad bit more difficult. Good luck finding a bearing puller that is small enough to fit inside the bearing—I ended up grinding down the claws of my bearing puller to make it fit. Unfortunately, the bearing internals came out, but the casing did not. I tried a blind hole bearing puller with no luck either. In a moment of desperation, I used a 7/16 tungsten carbide burr to shave away the sleeve. Luckily, the burr knocked the sleeve loose, and I was home free.

The new bearing slipped right in, and with the new pushrod, slave, and pressure plate I bled the clutch. For some reason I ordered a pre-2000 pushrod, which is shorter than the newer ones.Oberon was nice enough to supply spacer so that I could use the new slave with the pre-2000 pushrod. But, even with the spacer the slave was reaching the end of its travel before disengaging the clutch. I used a section of the old pushrod as a second spacer—and it worked!

After a quick test ride, everything seemed to be holding up nicely. My only complaint was that the friction zone of the clutch was at the very beginning of the lever travel. I must have made the second spacer too long. Instead of shortening the spacer, I shimmed the slave off the case cover using 2 thin washers on each bolt.

First impressions of the Oberon slave are excellent, but I will have to wait until spring to fully test it.