I did my first open practice this past weekend on a '12 1199 I built.....a few kinks to work out, but nothing major. The biggest surprise was the front brakes seemed to fade and get really hot and smelly, and I had a slight fluid weep from the bleeder valve on one of the calipers. This is stock calipers, stock rotors, stock MC and HH pads. I haven't had a chance to bypass the ABS pump for the front brakes, and I've never had another bike on track with ABS. I'm assuming once I configure the front brakes to be independent from the ABS pump, this issue will resolve itself......anyone else dealt with this issue? Any advice?
throw away the HH pads and get some EPFA, GPXFA, or other performance pads. HH are barely adequate for street use. The backing plate is too thin and warps when hot and then remains bent.
The pads I have on the front are EBC EPFA447HH. They seem to bite and work really well, and I didn't detect any drag after each session, so I'm not sure why they were fading and smelly.
Fixed this issue by bypassing the ABS pump to the front brakes, replacing the MC with an RCS unit, and Speigler lines. No braking issues with the new set up.
That's pretty much what I have gathered from all my research into the Pani front brake issue. Something with the ABS pump, it may be a universal issue with ABS, but specifically the Ducati set up SUCK for having a good front brake feel. Glad you got it sorted out, I gave up the Pani race/track bike ghost before trying to rectify any of the issues that are common place on them. Have you addressed the water pump and weep hole issues, if not throw that on your list.
Haven't had any issues with the cooling system yet, and I got the bike from the original owner with 17k miles and no service history, so I'm surprised it hasn't been an issue (assuming the original owner didn't have it fixed). The clutch push rod seal was leaking engine oil, but Mark Sutton cut a groove in the rod so I can use an o-ring to seal it off.....so far so good with that. I've got to get the TuneBoy QS for it, and then hopefully it'll be relatively competitive. So far I'm impressed (scared) by the speed it goes.....everything happens really fast on this bike.
Don't forget the obvious, replace the brake fluid with the good stuff. And then remember that some of the good stuff absorbs water over time so make sure you replace the good stuff fluid on a regular basis
