Well, the Mallory Park Monster trackday was the deadline - it was a bit touch and go but here's an update on the project and how it rode I do have to point out here that my actual hands on work with the bike has been minimal, well actually, I haven't done anything except send more boxes to Dave in order to further confuse him.....

As always with custom projects, nothing is ever as simple as you think. The bike was still looking like a car crash at 9pm on Tuesday (trackday was Thursday at 8am) but due to the extreme dedication to the job from Dave and Mark, the bike was fired up again after 6 months on Wednesday lunchtime, the day before the big day.

A quick ride seemed to indicate everything was going to be okay for the trackday. Minimal suspension tweaks were needed and the standard maps for the Power Commander III seemed to do the job. When the bike is completed, a dyno run will be in order but it was nice to get the bike running again after being in bits for so long. Although, it looks nearly finished, I would say now this is where the work really begins - the details are what are going to pull all these bits together.

WHEELS
The wheels arrived after being repainted. They were not quite the colour scheme I had in mind as the carbon was different to the type you normally see on cosmetic items. Although, the carbon was lacquered and glossy, upon closer inspection, the carbon was much rougher and pitted than I expected. What this meant was that the "Moto GP" style rim stripe could not be painted as the carbon didn't provide a solid enough base to work on. That said, the magnesium centres were still able to be painted.

We tried to apply the rim stripes with vinyl strips but couldn't find a metallic/pearl red to match the centres. A red was tried but it didn't look quite right. A silver stripe was then applied which looked even worse and so decided to return to the rim stripes at a later date - white perhaps?

BODYWORK
The rear QB hugger came off and was replaced by a smaller, sharper version. Not as substantial as the QB version but still with lower protection for the rear shock. It doesn't feel as stiff but how it mounts to the swingarm is much more discrete which in turn shows off the trellis swingarm a lot better.

The tank, bellypan, seat cowl, MV seat unit, headlight fairing, rear hugger, front mudguard are still at the painters - mainly due to me this time. Some of the decals I had made are the wrong size for the Corse stripe (too large) so I've had to get them remade. Although the paint shop can do decal work, I am incredibly anal about typography and kerning (nerd speak for letter design) and have had to have them remade on more than one occasion because they weren't quite right. You sometimes have to have the diplomacy skills of Kofi Anan in order to tell people to redo their work which they think is perfect but I'm not 100% happy with. As my father once told me, it is good to have extreme attention to detail within the confines of the design and advertising industry but a pain in the ass in the real world. Oh, how do I manage to carry this burden along the treacherous path I must follow in this journey through life, sigh.

The other development of the project has been how to easily convert it from a mono seat into being able to take pillions. The initial design idea was to use the MV seat unit complete with numberboards to give it a racebike look. That in itself is no problem but I wanted to have the ability to swap seats and to be able to carry pillions with the regular seat unit. The way in which this going to work is that each of the mono and biposta seats will be a complete unit complete with all rear lighting and indicators complete with a simple snap fit all-in-one wiring connector. How the number plates will fit - whether to the frame or directly to the seat has yet to be decided.

EXHAUST SYSTEM
The complete system came back from the polishers and looks the nuts. Guess, I'll miss those rusty, brown header pipes come winter. The Termi end cans are noticably longer than the Sil high level pipes which make them extend beyond the end of the bike now that the tail has been chopped. Somehow, the pipes or pipework will be shortened so that they sit better with the frame. More than likely, it will be the pipework and hopefully we will be able to pull in the pipes in by at least 2-3 inches.

HANDLEBARS TO CLIP-ONS CONVERSION
Ah, the simple life. Take the old bars off, install new clip-ons and ride off into the sunset. Er, not quite. Adjustable clip-ons were the way to go - cyclecat under triple mounted version to be more accurate. They have about a 2.5 " rise on the outside of the forks so that they end up above the triple - cafe racer style if you like. These had to be specially ordered so that the 53mm Ohlins forks would work with them (standard Monster forks are 50mm).

With the risers installed, it was then found that nothing else would fit correctly on the bars due to the radial clutch and brake master cylinders being different dimensions to the standard items. This in turn meant that there was no room to install the standard switchgear - for the trackday, the starter switchgear was fitted with a bit of additional machining but the turn signals were left off to deal with at a later date. It seems that one solution is to replace the S4R switchgear with 996 items which should solve the problem - in theory.

The other problem was to how to mount the mirrors as radial masters are race items, they don't accomodate mirror brackets, que surprise! After a load of interweb searches, I have had to order some brackets which work with the brembo masters from Hamerica which will hopefully fit.

The fluid reservoirs have been replaced with Rizoma alloy items. Even these needed a bit of fettling so they didn't stick up like electricity pylons when mounted. The other strange thing with these is that they come with white measurement windows rather than transparent - I'll have to check whether that's the norm - seemed weird to me.

And then onto the DP steering damper. Now that the handlebars have been removed, there was now nothing for the damper bracket to clamp onto. Oh bugger, never thought of that. So we had to mount the old handlebar mount in order to install the damper which looks a bit odd and cluttered. It seems that some new brackets are needed to be made here to get this set-up to look better. I may look into getting hold of an S4 damper to see if that will fit better with the clip-ons with less modifications - ho, hum, more research and what ifs.

LIGHTING
This has been largely bypassed as the primary concern was getting the bike running again for the trackday rather than making it road legal. The front headlamp is still at the painters but some micro Kellerman indicators have been ordered to replace the standard front indicators (which I'm sure were responsible for slowing me down by at least 5mph on the Mallory start/finish straight). Some LEDS have also arrived for the MV seat unit to replace the BMW bulb arrangement that exists at present - hopefully this should be a straight swap.

ELECTRICS & TRICK STUFF
The power commander and new ECU were fitted and they seemed to run okay straight out of the box. With more time, a dyno set-up will be in order but for the track day, they worked surprisingly well. The quickshifter went on as did the Translogic Micro dash gear indicator/lap timer but unfortunately, neither of us had time to read the manual in order to get to know how it worked properly. Doh. This smaller set-up will be replaced with the full Translogic Race Dash if we can work out how to bypass the Ducati immobiliser. As yet, neither Ducati UK nor any forum members have managed to do this yet but we'll keep trying.

TRACK PERFORMANCE
The bike no longer has any road tax, mirrors, lights or number plate so a full road test wasn't really possible so it's first outing proper was at Mallory Park on the second UK Monster track day. Bear in mind, that this was the first time since last November that I had ridden the bike and Dave's advice 'not to thrash it in first as it'll flip me' or 'it'll wheelie in second at 4000 revs", did nothing to calm my nerves as I enetered the pit lane. On top of this, new tyres were put on the previous moringTo cut a long story short, it performed really well and couldn't fault it - no wobbles or lock-ups, it turned really easily although it's hard to make a back to back comparison as it had been so log since I rode it last and that was only running it - it went straight to Dave's from it's first 600 mile service.

WHAT'S NEXT
Getting the bodywork back and fitted along with making it road legal. We also had problems with boots rubbing the swingarm - either stronger guards on the rearsets will replace the carbon Cyclecat guards or a swingarm protector of some kind will have to be made. The seat will also be resculpted and recovered in leather (or similar).

The bike has been ridden in anger and anyone who saw Dave ride the bike at Mallory Park saw that there were very few problems with the bike. All in all, I am one happy bunny but need to now make the final push to get the bike back on the road - still many small technical issues to deal with but all in all, I am one happy bunny.