So I've had a crack at making an RS-style airbox for my junkyard dog 749R/999RS project. It's nothing pretty, only vaguely Corse-ish in that it will seal against the underside of the tank and all RS similarities pretty much end there. But it will do the job: It's kinda tricky to measure the volume of the thing given the shape and size....that and I'm not very smart, but a conservative measure indicates somewhere just over 15litres. Anybody know the volume of an OEM 749/999 airbox? Given my mung bean intake setup (1098 TB's, Jetprime intake manifolds etc) and the tank, I had no option, but I'm just curious. NB: management reserves the right to withhold any and all correspondence regarding resonance and other bullshit that Ducati never considered at the time of construction. The other question rattling around in my scone: have Ducati made the frame brace/tank mount bracket removable on the race homologation models (749R/999R) because they intend for it to be removed? Or does it actually serve a bracing purpose? I'm talking about this lil' fella: It was a ball-ache to work around (allowing access to the bolts, sealing around the tubes etc) not to mention is a lump of possibly unnecessary steel. The RS/F0 frames don't have it, so did Ducati make it removable because they intend you to remove it for a race application?
I’ve just binge read through your entire blog and the exclamations WOW and OMG don’t do it justice, respect! What practical difference did those jetprime velocity stacks make?
Thanks so much for the kind comments, hard to know how it comes across. Just something to keep me sane during work related isolation: 18 weeks motel isolation in 18 months, it was bullshit about bikes or drink myself into a stupor, lol. The shorter velocity stacks push the torque peak up the rev range. Torque and hp are linked by rpm, so the same torque at higher revs = more hp. Of course the devil is in the detail: cams, valves, engine must be spec’d to operate at those revs too. No good trying to push the torque peak on say a 900SS up to 11krpm if it runs out of puff at 9krpm. Realistically the Jetprime stacks are probably too short for my reduced rev limit. The RS engine is designed/built to rev to 13.5 - 14krpm….but needs a rebuild every 500km. Gulp! So I’ve knocked that back to 11.5krpm for the longevity of both engine and wallet. With bodged up intake adapters (999RS ports are quite different) and 749/999 TB’s and 749RS trumpets it still made near enough to 170 Dynojet hp and I was happy enough with that. So it will be interesting to see how the different setup compares.
