2000 Ducati 748

Just picked up this bike (12/27/99) at Honda Peninsula in Sunnyvale, California. Here's a quick photo...

I bought the biposto setup, as I ultimately wanted to have both the biposto and monoposto, and it was cheaper to buy the monoposto afterward (only need one seat, don't need the rear pegs and hangers, etc.) After having bought a mono tailsection, swapping back and forth is quick and easy - just two delrin pins need to be removed and reinserted, and the entire tailsection can be changed.

After riding the TL1000R for some 12,500+ miles, I caught the bug for a Ducati. The famed suspension was the big draw, although I was a bit leery of the reputation for reliability. After much assurance that the bikes are now first- rate after the TPG infusion, I broke down and bought the 748. While it would have been nice to get the 748S model, it wasn't available at the time of purchase (and still isn't as of early February 2000), and the cost for the updates was questionable.

I've been careful about breaking the bike in, being nice to it to prevent any bad things from happening early on. I took the bike to Nichols Manufacturing for the 600 mile service; Jon and Jim did a stellar job not just on the work, but in explaining everything they were doing, as well as providing some hints to a first time Ducati owner. Nichols comes highly recommended, and deservedly so - they've earned all future (non-warranty) work on my 748.

Anyway, back to the suspension...while it's definitely on the firm side, it's linear across the travel. The TL1000R is good as long as the bumps don't get too big. On larger hits, the rear kicks me up and out of the seat, and becomes very unsettled. I'm still playing with the suspension on it, but the consensus seems to be that the rear spring isn't designed for someone who only weighs 150 pounds. This seems to be borne out by the fact that putting a 95 pound passenger on back seems to make things much more compliant, but still not wallowy. The 748, by comparison, seems to always be in control. Even though the standard 748 doesn't come with the Showa rear shock, it seems to do its job well on the street. I'll find out next month how it fares on the track...

February 4th, 2000 update: The bike's gone back to the dealer because of serious bogging under freeway acceleration. It's also getting hard to start at times, dies when coming to a stop sometimes, etc. The ugly Ducati quality reputation rearing its ugly head?

February 9th, 2000 update: Got the bike back today. The dealer spent a lot of time trying to track down the problem; checked everything from valve clearances to fuel injectors to computer mapping. After they were stumped and put in a call to Ducati North America, I figured I'd check with the Ducati mailing list. Almost everyone pointed to a split fuel line immediately. I called the dealer back and had them check it out, and what do you know, that was the problem. You knew the Internet was good for something other than home shopping, right? ;-) Anyway, this is all a bit frightful that the dealer couldn't track down the problem, especially since there was a factory recall or bulletin on this exact problem in 1997/98.

February 19th, 2000 update: Bike is back at the dealer; oil leak messing up my garage floor. Grrrr...

February 21st, 2000 update: Got the bike back today. Turns out the front central cover was leaking big time. Dealer said it was a factory defect, and that the cover wasn't machined flat. I'm disinclined to believe this, as it never leaked when new, didn't leak after Nichols did the first valve check at 600 miles, and only leaked right after the dealer did the same check the week prior. After speaking with Nichols about this, they said they'd NEVER seen a cover not machined flat. I'm putting this one down to mechanic error.

This also brings up an interesting dilemma. While the work for problems like these is done at the dealer under warranty, I don't have much confidence in the end result. As such, I'll be taking the bike to Nichols for ALL work from now on, warranty or not. Even though they're not an authorized Ducati dealer, and hence I'd have to pay for this sort of thing, at least I know the work will be done right.

Enough mechanical ramblings; more riding impressions: This bike kicks ass! The initial draw of the bike - the suspension - has proved to be everything I was hoping it would be. While it's definitely stiff, it's so very precise. Riding around the local twisties has shown what a great setup it is. A bit more preload was required at the rear, even for my 150 pound body - this just served to make turn-in quicker and easier, and put more weight on the front end. Perfect. A bit more rebound in the front, and things are pretty near optimal. One thing you really notice when pushing hard is that you can brake well into corners without the bike standing up on you; the TL1000R, on the other hand, just jumped up at the first whiff of brake.

The engine is nowhere near the monster the TL1000R's is, but it certainly has enough poke for the street. I actually think it's an advantage not having all that torque at the back wheel when riding around in the rain, or in less than optimal conditions in the hills (sand, mud, water, leaves, and other runoff). It revs out nicely, but not as quickly as the TLR, which was surprising. It's stout, but not violent like the TLR - I guess that's the best way of describing it. A set of pipes would really make it sing...

Jumping from the 748 to the TLR is a weird experience. Despite the fact that they claim similar dry weights, the wet weights are hugely discrepant. This is obvious just pushing the bikes around in the garage. Once on the move, the TLR's radical wheelbase and geometry make the weight disappear. The 748, despite much more conservative numbers, is still easy to chuck around. The inherent stability in the more conservative geometry is probably what makes the 748 so nice mid-corner. It's curious that the two bikes you always hear about having dead-stable mid-corner handling are laid out similarly - both the 748/996 and Kawasaki ZX-7R are about the same weight, have similar geometry, and both put a lot of weight on your wrists via the riding position.

The ergos between the TLR and 748 are quite different also. The 748 makes you feel like you're going to knock your knees together when you get on it - it's really slim. The TLR spreads your legs out much further, which also contributes to an effectively higher seat height. The seat on the TLR is nice and comfy, almost too much so; the 748's seat, comparatively, feels about as thick and plush as a strip of electrical tape. The reach to the bars is much further/lower on the 748, which is somewhat less comfortable than the TLR, but as mentioned above, probably contributes to it's excellent front-end feedback. Peg height on both bikes is reasonably high, although that's of little concern to someone like me with short legs.

Miscellaneous bits: The 2000 model 748/996 has a weird sidestand interlock - the bike won't start if the sidestand is down. This is supposed to be a safety measure because the sidestand is no longer spring-loaded, so won't pop up when you take the weight off it. Why they couldn't just do it like the rest of the world (can start on the sidestand, if you're in neutral), I don't know. Luckily, a company called Evoluzione Cyclesports seems to have already come out with a clean fix for this. You can see this product at http://www.evoluzione.net/html/kickstand.html.

Worth mentioning, but certainly not a reason for buying a 748, is the pretty impressive gas mileage. If you're superslabbing it on a road trip, it'll actually turn in numbers above 50mpg. Of course, on the track, that number drops to the low 30's. But, if you do a mix of freeway and spirited twisties riding, you'll likely be pleasantly surprised at how little gas you burn. Like I said, just an interest item...

March 15th, 2000 update: Lost the front end and lowsided the bike. Result: Long slide down the tarmac, after which it grabbed and tumbled. Damage assessment: totalled. Sigh...

The good news is that the Erbo suit, Held gloves, and Daytona boots all did their respective jobs, and I sustained basically zero damage. I did have a nice bruise on my left asscheek, but that's it. I owe a big thanks to the guys at Helimot for educating me about safety equipment!

March 30th, 2000 update: Not to be kept away from the Ducati riding experience, I replaced the first 748 with another today. State Farm came through for me quickly with a reasonable settlement, so it's back to more of the same. We'll see whether I run into the same problems as the first bike (specifically, the split fuel line)...

April 6th, 2000 update: I installed the Evoluzione sidestand bypass today - works great. The bike now behaves reasonably, letting me start it with the kickstand down and the bike in neutral. Highly recommended for owners of Y2K Ducatis...

May 27th, 2000 update: I once again lowsided on the right hand side. Sigh...I took pictures for insurance purposes, since it would appear to be debris left from half-completed roadwork.

September 28th, 2000 update: I was at Nichols Manufacturing this morning, viewing the damage. The bike was in for its 6,000 mile service, and of course they found 2 rockers with the hard chrome flaking off, and several more on the verge of going. This isn't a new problem, although Ducati isn't being particularly intelligent about dealing with it. Jim says that since they've started pulling cams to check the rockers, they've seen exactly *ONE* bike come through without at least one bad rocker (it was a '95 916, by the way).

Ducati's manner of dealing with this is to replace only the bad rockers (with exactly the same part, which will of course fail some thousands of miles later) and send you on your way. Stupid. So, I'm footing the bill, and having all the rockers sent off to MegaCycle to get welded up and rehardened. This should be the last I ever hear from the rockers. By the way, this is the same process Vance and Hines Ducati has done to all of their rockers before they even run the engine...

While Jim was poking around, he also found that one of the cam belts was rubbing against the side of the head at the cam pulley, shaving/fraying the cam belt. It appears to be an idler spacing issue, although a bit more checking will be required.

Just for shits, I called the dealer to see what their take on all of this was. They claim to have never seen the idler issue (except for one which froze on a Monster), and have only seen the rocker issue on 3 bikes in the past 3 years. These are the same folks that told me they'd *NEVER* heard of it back when I bought the first 748, despite it coming up fairly frequently on the Ducati mailing list. I guess I'd expect no less from these guys. Jim's theory is that everyone knows this dealer is incompetent, so they call asking about it, get the same drivel, and people get the bike fixed elsewhere. So, maybe they really only have seen it 3 times... :-/

Anyway, the gist is that I'm down for about 3 weeks; things should be back together in time for the next trackday at Thunderhill, though...

You can see pictures of the mess here.

I'm also taking this opportunity to make a few upgrades to the bike, since it's going to be down anyway. A new chain and sprockets is among them.

October 27th, 2000 update: Got the bike back today, just in time for a trackday on the 30th. As it turns out, the trackday got rained out, but that's another story. Anyway, the bike should be all set: Got the 6k mile service done, rockers were all MegaCycle'd, cam belts replaced because of that weird rubbing, chain and sprockets done, and lightened flywheel installed.

I also had the front forks revalved and a new Ohlins rear installed. Details and pics can be found on the suspension page.

November 4th, 2000 update: Got to hit another trackday at Thunderhill to test out the suspension and other mods. In a nutshell, it's great! The bike feels so much more controlled over the bumpy stuff it's not even funny. Phil did a great job...

Between the lightweight flywheel and 40-tooth rear sprocket, the bike feels like it's picked up all sorts of drive. The challenge is now keeping the front wheel on the ground and/or keeping the rear from stepping out when exiting corners. By the way, don't let the naysayers talk you out of the flywheel with all their yap about easy stalling, snatchy throttle response, etc. - it's all crap. The bike works perfectly fine without those extra few pounds...faster revving through the range is what you get, with no ill side effects.

November 28th, 2000 update: Finally made it down to G-Force Performance to do some dyno testing. In particular, I was curious about the mapping the FIM chip was doing, and whether it was any better than the stock setup. I also have an Arrow chip, but the idle is bad enough to make me not want to run it. Add to that the fact that there are some huge holes in the curve that you can actually feel as obvious bogs/starvation, and I didn't even bother running it.

The raw numbers ended up being 93.8 horsepower, and 51.2 foot-pounds of torque.

Here are the various graphs:

What becomes immediately obvious is that the FIM chip is very peaky in its fueling. It's very rich on the bottom, and gets quite lean around 7k RPMs, before tapering off somewhat normally. The stock chip, on the other hand, is much less radical; it never gets as rich, nor nearly as lean. This is borne out in the horsepower and torque graphs also - the stock chip never makes less of either than the FIM chip.

Now, I realize that these results are only applicable on my bike, on this particular day, with these particular chips. I also realize that the FIM chip can be tuned. The problem is that no one in the San Francisco Bay Area (that I know of) has the tool for doing the work. So, the stock chip will remain on the bike.

It's important to note that you can actually feel the difference between the two chips, especially on the bottom end. Initial drive off the line is much cleaner and stronger. After doing some back to back butt-dyno tests on the road when I first installed the chip, that was my impression. I was afraid to run the stock chip for fear of it being overly lean, however, until I could verify the mapping via an air/fuel meter. The dyno shows no worries in the fueling, however, even with the ITG filter and Arrow slipons...

December 6th, 2000 update: After posting the dyno results on my web page, as well as sending a note to the Ducati mailing list, I was contacted by Bruce Meyers of BCM Ducati (where I bought the FIM chip and ITG filter) saying that there was a new version of the chip available. The original was a UM091; the new one is a UM211. He replaced my old UM091 for free, and I scheduled more dyno time.

The weather wasn't so good this morning - light rain, high humidity. Mike over at G-Force Performance wanted to do another baseline to make sure we were comparing apples to apples. Good thing too, as the dyno run on the stock chip returned only 91hp this time around, versus 93.8hp last week. So, with a new baseline, we dyno'd the UM211, which gave 93.1hp in the humid conditions.

More important than the numbers, though, is the fact that the air/fuel ratio curve looks *MUCH* more reasonable. In fact, it looks very similar to the stock (059U) curve, except slightly leaner. Gone are the severe peaks and valleys indicating very lean and very rich conditions. Given the same conditions as last week, the bike should pull 95+hp without problem. From what I can tell, this is pretty respectable for a 748.

The bike again pulls nicely from down low. The only slight glitch is when "blipping" the throttle slightly from idle, the RPMs rise, then drop and hover around 1,500rpm for a second before settling back down to around 1,000rpm. There doesn't seem to be any real downside to this in real-world riding, however. I'm going to continue running the FIM chip for another week or so, and assuming no other glitches show up, will probably stick with it.

Anyway, here are the graphs:

March 22nd, 2001 update: Based on my comments above, Doug Lofgren further tweaked the UM211 chip for my bike. Today was much more reasonable weather-wise, which confirmed earlier suspicions that the numbers were low back in December. Another baseline of the stock UM211 gave 96hp versus the 93.1hp from December.

Armed with that information, Mike dyno'd Doug's custom chip, and came up with 96.9hp and 52.9ft-lbs of torque. The bike now idles cleanly, the RPMs don't "hang" when blipping the throttle, and there is nice drive all the way through the rev range. I couldn't be happier. Here's the graph:

November 16th, 2001 update: Well, two of the four closing rockers in the front head had their chrome flaking off. Most times it's the openers that are the problem, but on bikes with lots of miles or lots of track time, the closers can flake too. Jim at Nichols discovered the problem while the bike was there for the 18,000 mile service.

While it was there, I also had a rear hugger and new clutch installed. You can see pictures of everything here. The good news is that Jim got the bike back together in record time - thanks again Jim!

July 12th, 2002 update: I chunked the crank at a trackday at Buttonwillow. Details here.

September 3rd, 2002 update: Got the bike back from Nichols, with the crank turned, new bearings installed throughout, new flywheel and flywheel nuts, oil pump blueprinted, and best of all, an 853 kit with matching FIM chip! Just need to break in the engine, and do some dyno runs...

BTW, it's worth noting that the MegaCycle'd rockers (openers, anyway) have over 20,000 miles on them, and they look just fine. They're without doubt much more stout than the OEM units, some of which had flaked at the 6,000 mile mark. So, for those people questioning the longevity of the MegaCycle treatment, fear not...

October 22nd, 2002 update: Made another trip to G-Force Performance to get the bike dyno'd. Results? 104.2hp and 59.7ft-lbs. of torque. Not a huge gain on paper (7.5hp and 7ft-lbs. of torque), but you can certainly feel the difference in the power delivery, as well as trap speed at the end of the front straight at Thunderhill. Here are the graphs:

Last modified: Tuesday, 14-Jan-2003 22:58:05 PST
Questions/Comments/Problems: Paul H. Yoshimune