The 851 project wasn't so much bubbling merrily along as on a gentle simmer. To paraphrase the immortal words of Buzz Lightyear: a blind man could see that the timeline was stretching "to infinity and beyond". It sure wasn't going to be hitting the track any time soon.
So in the background I'd also been trying to sort something with the 749R, only to find a similar issue with repairing the toasted bearings (and almost certainly crankshaft) as I'd struck with building the 851/926 engine: either no-one was interested, or they simply couldn't fit it in. I completely understood the latter, I was snowed under myself trying to fit 12 months of work around the property into the 6 months I was home, hence I was trying to farm it out.
The obvious solution was to find another motor = happy days. It sounds easy in theory but in practical terms 749R (or 999R?) engines are pretty thin on the ground anywhere, let alone in Australia.
Note: Just take a look around and mentally mark this point: if I had to pick an exact moment where the stick of the sanity-plane was pushed forward, the point at which I go from flying reasonably straight and level to assuming a definite nose down trajectory, this would probably be it.
Back to my engine conundrum. I just couldn't see myself being happy with anything else: a 749R might be sitting in the top bleachers but it is still in the same ballpark as the IL4 600's of 10 years later, I mean an '06 Yamaha R6 isn't that much different to a '16 R6. Swap over my worked heads and I'd be back in business with a lovely revvy thing that makes good grunt and handles great, even if it is carrying a few too many kilo's.
A 999R engine with it's titanium conrods, forged lightweight crank etc is also a sweet thing but realistically it was down on power compared to the litre bikes of the mid-2000's let alone the superbikes of 10 years later. Fast forward and forget about it being in the same ballpark, even an early S1000RR would smash it out into the carpark. I still thought a later short stroke 104mm bore '05 - '06 model would be a hoot ('03 - '04 were 100mm bore) but the chances of finding one in Australia, let alone Perth, are winning Lottery numbers low. But it didn't stop me looking....
….and looking....
….and looking some more....
….until I eventually bumped into the chain link fence at the edge of the internet where I stumbled across something interesting: a 999RS engine, the exact same engine the non-Factory teams raced in WSBK (Haga, McCoy, Haslam, Chili all rode a 999RS at some stage). It was "as new" after being completely rebuilt by Bursi Evolution, with new crank, new pistons, new....everything. 195hp at 13500rpm, amazing for what is now seen as a "small" twin.....but at WSBK level, pulling those big revs with monster cams smashing valves open/closed, it had a life expectancy of just 500km before rebuild required, so basically good for 1 race weekend. And it was in Italy. Phew, glad that's out of the question, even I'm not that stupid......
Or am I? A month or so later and it's still there....
Cue the internal discussion: "You're Nigel-No-Mates at the track, an RS has no starter motor, so how're you going to handle that? No way are you bump starting a big twin with 104mm bore and near enough 14:1 compression....and a slipper clutch. What about those funky inlet ports, OEM manifolds won't fit and the oval throttle bodies/manifolds are unobtainium, how would you fuel it? Just forget about it ya mug. " To be honest it was a pretty one sided "discussion" because I didn't have any answers.
A few more weeks go by and it's like a worm burrowing into my head...
...and some "casual" research informed me that it was an AMA-spec RS engine, the same as Bostrom/Hodgson would have raced. Why did this have me sitting a bit straighter in my chair? The AMA stipulated that bikes had to have a functioning starter motor.
Ok, time to stop just kicking the can around and seriously evaluate my options.
Who'd have thunk racing a GSXR superbike would be helpful with regards to Ducati's but I'd learned an interesting factoid from Ray Clee of RCM Performance who builds all the Yoshimura GSXR superbikes for the all-conquering (in NZ) "Suzuki NZ" NZSBK effort. I bought my ex-Suzuki NZ GSXR1000K7 from him when they upgraded to the new L0. In talking about the bike I recalled him saying "...the last 1000rpm is the killer". A Yoshi'd GSXR1000 with their ST-R cams/Ti collets needs the valves replaced every 1500km when rev'd to win a national championship....but as a club racer, revert to an OEM-ish redline as I was advised and you'll get an easy 5000 racing km's out of it, while still making (a dyno'd) 178rwhp.
So that's a couple of the big issues sorted:
1. it has a starter
2. running, for example, a 749R/999R-ish (eg. 11500 - 12000rpm) redline would greatly extend the service interval while still making good if not world class hp.
Another comment to emerge from the tumbleweeds blowing around in the back of my mind was from another noted engine builder: in making the same horsepower a purpose built race engine will be under-stressed where a modified road engine will be over-stressed.
Tangent alert....the history of WSBK has a bit to do with how we arrived here. Back in the day 1000cc twins were equivalent to 750cc 4's because the limitations on valve area and revs related to the 8 valve twin vs a 16 valve 4 cylinder meant both formats move the same amount of air/fuel and therefore make the same hp. In those analogue days it was pretty close to the mark, with differences in:
A. Traction,
B. Factory involvement
C. Rider
D. All of the above
being the deciding factors.
But with the introduction of the '92 Fireblade > '98 R1 > '00 GSXR1000, 750's were staring down the same barrel as had just been faced by 500cc 2 strokes at GP level: they were becoming irrelevant. So for 2004 WSB the capacity difference was thrown out and an across the board 1000cc limit was adopted.
So how do you make a 1000cc twin, underpowered and overweight in road trim, compete against 1000cc 4's when the flag drops and the gloves come off?
The rules in WSB were fairly loose at the time, nothing like the prescriptive WSS rules, more around general architecture and materials than specific OEM items must be used. As a result there were virtually no parts from an OEM road bike used on an RS or Factory racer, with every single item lighter/stronger/better. Think of Toine's insight into the engine above, and apply that to every component on the bike, even the RS/F0 frames were a hand crafted TIG rather than mass produced MIG welded unit. By the time the 4 cylinder bikes had figured out how to harness their over-abundance of hp the last of the 999RS/F06's were verging on V-twin Motogp bikes in trying to stay competitive.
To illustrate the point Toine Biggelaar, a world renowned Ducati tuner, recently made this interesting video comparison:
But while the IL4's were well and truly winning the hp war the poor ol' 999 had one last trick up it's sleeve: it was as skinny as a racing sardine. Check out this shot of Haga on the R1 and Bayliss on the 999, bearing in mind that that the camera angle favours the R1 in the background yet it still looks bulky in comparison to the 999:
Throw a few arbitrary numbers into this lil' fella and you'll see where I'm going with this:
If the the drag coefficient of a Hayabusa is 0.55 (thank you Google) we'll assume for argument's sake that a smoother race bike (without any sticky outy indicators/mirrors/mufflers/passenger pegs etc) is 0.5, WSB weight limit of 164kg (361lb), how much hp is required to reach 200mph for a given frontal area?
- 8sq. ft frontal area = 215hp
- 7sq. ft frontal area = 189hp
The frontal area is a complete guess-timate, but you get the idea: there's more than one way to go fast.
Tangent over....the more I looked into the RS engine the more I realised, for the asking price, it was a relative performance bargain. You could easily spend a lot more money on a modified road based engine that would be slower and more fragile. Ironically you'd end up using a lot of RS parts doing it. A 1098/1198 engine would bolt straight in, but would have some fitment headaches of its own, and unless it was an R (big $$$) would still be slower. And again I had to find one and take a punt on the condition, vs a brand new engine built using the best components known to man.
OK so it made a kind of practical sense, as long as I didn't think about the difficulty finding spares etc but truth be told there were a couple of less tangible thoughts swinging the balance:
1. The idea of experiencing something of WSB, tasting just a little of what those legends had raced back in the day, had a definite pull, and
2. I loved the nature of the 749R it is quite unique amongst Ducati's, so the idea of a bigger/badder 749R, basically a 749R on equine strength steroids, just sounded fantastic.
Given the sums involved I had to talk it over with my better half and she was great in not just giving the financial tick of approval but also applying some objectivity. Long story not much shorter: the 999RS engine was soon winging it's way from Italy to Perth. Air freight just made sense: same time frame as road freighting an engine from the Eastern state's (most likely source), only a couple of $100 more expensive, and had the least chance of damage.....it landed in Perth a week after sending the money.
And, after walking across the bureaucratic hot coals, I found myself staring at this:
