The 749/999 really does make your eye twitch, a genuine mix of "Oooooh, now that's clever..." and "WTF were they thinkin'?!"
Things like the alloy thermostat/coolant manifold might make sense from a manufacturing point of view but offends even those of a stout disposition, just as well it is mostly hidden....unfortunately it is hidden by something nearly as ugly/infuriating in the form of the battery/ECU/regulator panel which is bolted to it....(twitch...twitch twitch...twitch).
But, other items like the billet triple clamp, adjustable seat/rearsets, and tubular alloy rear monoposto subframe are just lovely and/or quite clever.
Some folks with cubic dollars at their disposal spend up on (super-rare) titanium rear subframe replacements, only to find they are heavier than the OEM unit. It's actually quite difficult to make much of an improvement....except for one thing: the OEM seat mount tabs have a habit of cracking. But that worked for me in that a fellow biker mate knew someone with exactly such a subframe with typically cracked tabs, surplus to requirements. You bewdy, for the price of shipping from the UK I had a spare subframe for the 749R (thanks heaps Mick/Paul).
Fast forward a couple of years and instead of the 749R it found itself Ti-bolted to the back of the 799RS project. Note the rear tank mount fitted to the subframe, a Bursi alloy copy of the 749RS carbon unit that allows for an RS tail/seat unit to be fitted, making those pesky seat tabs redundant:
The next cab off the rank is sitting on the lil' stool there: an RS magnesium steering eccentric:
I'm not quite sure why Magnesium is so bloody expensive when it is the second most abundant metal in the Earth's crust, but needs must, and importantly it also happens to be the lightest metal known to man: 34% lighter than aluminium. Hmmm, maybe I just answered my own question...
Bottom line, the steering eccentric is normally a fair ol' lump of aluminium, so the Mg RS version saves more than a few grams.
Installed here, it's easy to see how you simply rotate the eccentric by 180deg to change between 24.5deg or 23.5deg steering head angle:
Note the new tapered roller bearings replacing the original ball bearings.
24.5deg is the "normal" road setting allowing the OEM steering lock to function, 23.5deg is usually reserved for track use, sharpening things up but the steering lock is no longer operable.
Ok, so you've set the steering to the steepest setting, you've hit the track......it definitely feels sharper, more agile....but it feels like you've traded away stability to gain agility. Now it bump steers over all the track imperfections, especially under braking with the steep rake and you have to put in more effort up and out of corners because the steering doesn't self-centre as well as it used to.
You've basically robbed Peter to pay Paul....but why?
'Cos changing the rake has also changed the trail, see below:
This is where the 749R has an advantage that no other Ducati has: an eccentric steering tube that allows you to restore the trail via increasing the fork offset:
Summing all that up: you rotate the Mg outer eccentric to set the steering rake angle (23.5 - 24.5deg), and then rotate the steering stem eccentric to restore the appropriate amount of trail. It's a pretty cool setup, obviously not a cheap exercise to produce, and that billet upper triple sure is purty:
A featherweight Pierobon alloy front subframe is Ti-bolted on there for the moment, but I'm not sure if it will stay: I have a path forward for a dash that may be a little...er...problematic. But it's early days, will just let my subconcious process it for a while, my concious mind sure isn't good for much!
Oh yeah, on a complete tangent here: did you get a glimpse of some goldy-goodness amongst all the crap on the bench, way up there in the first photo?
I mentioned waaaaay back when I first installed the RS engine in the 749R, the different rocker covers on the RS vs the R. The R has plug-top "stick" ignition coils, where the RS has conventional coils mounted on the frame and conventional ignition leads and plug caps, hence the rocker covers have slightly different spark plug orifices.
For parts availability, simplicity, and the fact Jeff Bezos is not my daddy a Mil-spec RS harness/ECU/dash/sensor setup and all the hassles that go with it are outta my league so I have a used OEM road harness I'll be minimising as much as I can. So that means stick coils....which are a close, but not quite perfect fit for the RS covers. With no other option I'd give them a crack, the only real issue would be in the rain (because they don't quite seal) and the fact the R covers have a securing screw to allow for the extra weight of the stick coils wobbling around with vibration.
You can see the difference if you scroll down here:
The RS covers, well the horizontal one anyway, is quite cool in that it has the "Ducati Corse" logo cast into it (that's my front cover on the title page for this blog), but oddly is just plain old aluminium, where the R covers are differentiated from the lower spec models by being magnesium....of course that means they're bloody expensive and fairly rare...unless they're in rubbish condition.
I'd pretty much made up my mind just to "suck it and see" with the RS covers + stick coils ....until I found just the sort of rubbish I needed. Obviously you get what you pay for, and you'll see I didn't pay much! Why? 'Cos passivating/prepping/priming raw magnesium is an absolute ball-ache involving the kind of toxic chemicals most of us don't want in the same post-code let alone our own garage, so it's usually reserved for aviation-type specialists.
Sorry, I forgot to take an as-found piccie, but this gives you an idea after scraping away all the loose paint/corrosion:
Now you're probably thinking that looks like shit...but I'm thinkin' it's quite beeyootiful: all because of that funny "sneaker-paint" lookin' bottle.
I'd done a heap of research and found this stuff:
No, you don't use "cheap" and this stuff in the same sentence, but it's a bargain vs engaging professionals and for the sheer convenience.
So what you are actually looking at in the original photo above is fully passivated, ready for the beauty treatment.
After a bit of rehab I etch primed, then it was off to my local auto-paints specialist to try and find/mix a colour to match the unusual "magnesium" colour Ducati use....another ball ache because there are so many different shades of gold applied to magnesium parts depending on the model/part. These are an olive/gold, the 851 has a kind of tan/gold coloured Mg clutch cover, some other RS side covers are a more straw/gold etc.
The grumpy (but helpful all the same) ol' bastard helping me was even more grumpy at the end of it, but we eventually mixed something I was happy with. He popped it into a rattle-can, and supplied another rattle-can of satin 2K Clear. It's just a touch brighter compared to the almost grubby look of the OEM colour and I'm happy enough:
