Dead Ducks...

I spent yesterday at Guy's shop www.mbpducati.ca tearing apart Shannon's Ducati F1A motor, my F1S motor and a 95 900SS engine that I plan to use as a basis for next year's version of my F1S.

Shannon's F1A motor broke a mainshaft early in the season last year and we're still debating options for its resurection. Do we rebuild it with another Allazurra base or continuing to watch e-Bay for a Paso or early Sport motor?  It's a tough one; we could take the Allazurra approach which is the shortest distance between two points in the short term, but then she's left with a motor that is known for a weakness in the main shaft when punched out to 750cc and breathed on somewhat.  Having said that, Fran's TT is Allazurra-based and has been flogged carefully in endurance and sprint races for years.

My F1S motor failed spectacularly at Mosport during Sunday morning practice at the August VRRA festival - punching the front cylinder rod through the cases and soaking the front and back tires.  Admittedly, the motor was a grenade with the pin pulled given the problems we discovered last winter with the FBF big bore kit, and I had planned to ride it carefully and build a revised config this winter.  The careful riding plans went out the window in the endurance race and I continued the abuse by entering the bike in the Period 4 and Canadian Thunder sprint races.  I qualified well in both heat races and figured on a third in each class Sunday.

I've been looking at what Koba's 900SS powered F1 project in Japan F1 Club site http://park1.wakwak.com/~ari/f1f3/900rh1.html and Guy and I figured we might be able to go a step further by using an F1 crank and maintaining the short stroke and original outer cases.  After taking a bunch of measurements yesterday, it appears that we can do so - using the 900SS cases, gearbox and oil pump and the F1 crank, rods, ignition flywheel/pickups, stator, clutch and outer cases.  We need to go with EFI barrels because the oil jackets in the earlier 900SS barrels won't allow the machining of roughly 11mm off the top of the barrels.  This is already pretty silly stuff, so we're going to go full stupid and get BCM's www.bcmducati.com 944 kit and steal Shannon's Carillo rods.  With the F1 stroke, the motor will be a 853 like the last of the racing F1s.  We also confirmed that the 900SS cases can be milled and bored to accept the original F1 swing arm pin, bushings and seals.  The F1 heads are being upgraded to MBP Testarosso http://www.mbpducati.ca/cylinderheads.htm spec.  After all, it's only money...

Detailed pics of the damage http://loudbike.blogs.com/photos/87_ducati_f1b_engine_dama/index.html