[Ducati] Blammo!

[mike bernhard]

Hey Guys

I was out for a short ride on my 900 SS SP and all of a sudden I here a noise that sounded like a fork being dropped down a garbage disposal. I pulled the clutch in and the bike shut down immediately and I coasted to a stop. Luckily I was close to home and my gf came and picked me up so I could go get the trailer to bring her home.

When I finally got around to do some investigating I found a few small metal particles in the oil and when I pulled the belt covers the vertical cylinders belt was snapped. Ouch!

At that point I called Travis at Corse Superbikes what was going on and arranged a time to bring the bike in.

After exploratory surgery he found that the intake valve (i think) had been bouncing around inside the cylinder tearing up the cylinder wall and ported head, punching a hole in the high compression piston, etc. He also thought that the engine locked up breaking the belt since there were several teeth missing on the belt. (the belt had about 6k on it)

It looks like I will have to bore the cylinders, replace the pistons with 944s, new valves and guides, probably open up the bottom end to flush out any additional debris, not to mention the heads.

I really love this bike and am completely confident in Travis's work to bring her back to life, but I'm not sure if  I should be putting several thousands of dollars into this 96 SP. (about 8,500 miles)
The motor had been tweeked by Mark Sutton when he was running the Ducati team for Corse Superbikes. He did a great job and the bike ran really strong!

Anybody have an alternative ideas that might be more cost effective like buying a used low mileage motor or something goofy like installing a new DS Motor. I have been thinking about getting something newer lately but I would always go for a ride on the Duck after riding something else and be suprised at what a great bike it still is.

Anybody have any ideas?

Thanks in advance. 

Mike Bernhard


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