School me on Ducati Air Cooled Superbike Conversions...

I raced a SuperSport 1000DS for years before I did the 1098 conversion. The SS just isn't that great of a chassis, although I agree that it's cheaper and alot less work. Those are getting pretty old, too. I think if I didn't want to do the build, I would get an air cooled Monster. The 796 is slower, but you can ride that thing bone stock at the track and have a blast. SV650 type capability.

Mine has the 100mm piston which I believe is 1123 CC and very reliable. Mavros' hot rod was 105mm piston and they were breaking them every weekend. Of course, they were pushing 140 HP out of that turd with custom billet heads, etc.

Like I said earlier, the power is really in the porting of the heads and the larger valves. The hot fuels and super high compression just add too much heat, then you have problems with valve guides falling out.

 

Wow, I hadn't even thought of the Pierobons. I'll have to keep my eyes open for sure! Thanks for all the comments Gino. I'll make sure I contact you if I find the right platform.

While converting an already developed race bike into air cooled sounds fun, the idea of taking another street bike and building it for racing doesn't. I'm over it. So I suppose my ideal target is finding a nicely developed 848/1098/1198, Pierobon, Bimota, or even Vyrus and running it air cooled.

-Tom

 

Was he the guy who pitted with Bob Robbins? There used to be someone with a whole mess of the highest end, air-cooled Ducatis in the corner of Bob’s canopy. Truly, the nicest stuff imaginable.

 

I'm not sure. For a long time, MotoCorse was building all of those bikes for alot of customers. Charlie had several of them, so did Bob, but as I recall Bob liked his old 800SS the best. It could have been Chris Boy (owner of MotoCorse), he raced alot also before his injury a few years ago.

Chris had an NCR, too, which if I recall correctly was the peak of the air cooled madness. That's when they were making the billet heads and really pushing the limits. When AHRMA rules changed, they also started building alot of 888's using ST3 cases. That was a pretty cool thing, too.

 

I see alot of 848's pop up for sale, and they see to be getting cheaper and cheaper. Not many of them have all the right chassis parts, but like I said the bike can go fast either way.

Dave McEnry who used to be a fast CCS guy back in the day built one out of a 996- that was a cool bike, too. Message me anytime if you need help.

 

For sure, there was an NCR under there, so probably Chris.

Yep. Those guys really pushed the limits of what could be done.

 

One of my 2 favorite bikes of all time and the one it's tied with simply carries sentimental value (TLR, dad raced one for years). One day I'll have a 1098 in my stable... And I'll do my damnedest to wring its neck on track as often as possible while turning utterly disappointing lap times.

 

I rode a fully set up 1098R at Daytona one year, I did one 5 lap session on it and it scared the bejesus out of me. Of course, at that time, the fastest thing I had ever ridden was my 1000SS which maybe did 135MPH.

I remember coming out of the chicane with the front wheel in the air- something a LW bike would not do at the time. About halfway around the west banking, I'm in 4th gear with the throttle to the stop and I got serious tunnel vision- I felt like I was in the Millennium Falcon and we were making the jump to Light Speed. My wrist automatically rolled halfway off- I looked down and saw 175 on the speedo and thought- no, this is just too damn fast for me.

I still want to try racing a big bike, now that I have more experience on 600s. I know I will be less competitive, but I wanna go fast! Maybe one of these days when I'm not trying so hard to go faster on the LW bike.

 

Nice. The appeal to me is less the speed and more the character of the bike. Riding my dad's old TLR almost feels like wrestling a bear at times... and it's awesome. Frankly, I never thought they handled as poorly as everyone says but that may be due to my lack of experience across a wide variety of machines combined with a lack of ability to really push it. You discover more on the knife edge I suppose. But I've also got a couple of Triumph Daytonas from that era (one 900 and one 1200) and even on the street, they feel like absolute tanks. The TL is a minigp bike in comparison. But feeling that grunt just trying to bite the pavement and launch off corners, simultaneously wiggling its tail slightly and pogo-ing the front wheel halfway down any straight before reaching the next braking zone, throwing it on the binders and wishing it had reverse thrusters to get the big bastard slowed down... man there's nothing like it.

And let's not forget the sound a big twin makes. I'm thoroughly convinced there is no better sound on the planet than a big twin at full song under load. And the 1098 is the king of this sound.

 

-T

 

Wow! You have a couple of Triumph’s milestone bikes, IMO. I love the look of them.

 

They're neat bikes. The Super III is beautiful to look at and sounds pretty cool. Engine seems to perform quite well for the time period. But man, the weight and weight distribution are just atrocious. From what I've seen, many like to consider them simply a peppy sport tourer due to this as opposed to a full blown sport bike. But it's just not a comfortable ride. Probably doesn't help that I care very little about street riding. But I'll never sell it as it was given to me as probably the greatest act of kindness anyone has ever bestowed upon me and carries a significant amount of sentimental value. One of these days, I'll likely just drain the fluids and put it in my living room or mancave or something.

 

I built a 1299 and the first time i rode it was at Putnam. Grabbed 4th at just the right moment as i was coming over the lil hill on the straight and almost looped it. My 848 and gsxr 750 would barely do little wheelies there. Rode it at Jennings and could just power wheelie from the last to the first turn anytime i wanted to. It pulled so hard at WOT it was hard to process what was happening. I was definitely faster on the two smaller bikes and a lot less worn out.

 

Since we're going down memory lane.....

By far the best and most exciting Ducati I ever owned was my 749RS. It was built at Ducati Corse for Pegram to race in AMA Formula Extreme. They built 4- 2 for Pegram, and 2 for Vincent Haskovec. It had sand cast cases from a 999RS, full WSB spec build. It made 140 HP on U4.4 and revved to 14K rpm. It was also the best handling bike I've ever ridden, full stop. Probably because it was developed by a world class rider. Dave Weaver (now running the BMW Superbike team in MA) was crew chief for Larry and did some mods on it when they made the Daytona 200 a FX race. I think I paid $14K for it, probably spent another $5K having it all gone through and dyno tuned for VP. We did some measuring on it, and if I recall, we came to the conclusion that the frame was slightly different for handling purposes. Someone really knew what they were doing with that bike.

I took it to Daytona one year and got 2nd in ASRA Thunderbike behind Darren James I think- but I was DQ because the frame didn't have a VIN number on it. I was pissed, but I got interviewed by Swarts and got my picture taken on the podium so that was good enough for me.

It had a Corse transmission with a short 6th gear, coming across the line wide open at 14k rpm was an incredible sound. I think I have a video from under the tail somewhere- I'll have to try and find it.

Sold it 2 years ago to a Russian Oligarch- it just wasn't getting any use and the Yamaha build took priority.

 

Air-cooled stuff is the best

 

I built one as a Covid Sanity project, and sold it to a fellow rider at my local track. 1098 frame, S2R swingarm Triumph 675 front end, 900ss IE engine. Had to fab an exhaust from 900ss and S2R bits, and basically stock got 78hp at the rear.

 

handlebars are an interesting touch. How was it on track? Did you start with a complete bike or just pieced it together?

 

Pieced it together -- started with the engine and went from there.

 

If you decide to do something i've got an 11oo evo motor that I bought with the intention of putting in my 848 but never got around to it. I was told it had less than 1000 miles on it, it's been shop art for about 5 years now.

 

I picked up another mid 90's Ducati 900ss last month. I think I'm gonna try my hand a building something like a Walt Siegel cafe racer/ track bike.