That's an interesting point on the oil pressure - would be great to hear from someone in the know as to what the actual oil pressures are..........and if they may be on the low side? I don't subscribe to the theory that 'lugging'/labouring motors is a root cause or even major contributing factor to the failures - any engine should be designed to cope with those conditions from time to time without any real harm. Of course if that's not true of these engines then imho we're back to design flaw or inadequate quality of parts. If however low rpm use and/or labouring is a factor is it not surprising at what low mileages these engines are failing.......evidence in my non expert opinion of the design flaw/inferior parts theory ;-) The state of tune doesn't seem to be a factor as you'd expect proportionally more of the Diavel and Panigale motors to fail and as far as I can see that's not the case.........there have been Diavel/Panigale failures as well though.
Oil pressure - just check the workshop manual and the equipment for testing is described together with the procedure.....the Ducati DDS (diagnostic computer system) is geared up for testing/taking readings. Oil pressure test values: Warm engine (Minimum oil temperature = 80 °C) 1100÷1300 min-1 greater than 0.8 bar. 3500÷4000 min-1 greater than 4 bar. Important: The maximum pressure must never exceed 6.0 bar. 0.8bar = 11.6psi 4.0bar = 58psi 6.0 bar = 87psi
Maybe it was bar, not psi. My point was not that x pressure is present at a particular point, more that 30% of max pressure is achieved at tickover, so its unlikely that bearing failure is caused by low oil pressure. Unless the bearings have previous damage.
Bearings and journals create their own lubrication effect when they are moving, this depends on many factors including relative speed, oil viscosity, and load. Get it right and its hydrodynamic lubrication and the bearing floats. Overload it by running the bearing at lower speed or increasing the impact load (running a twin at low revs) and you will get problems as the oil wedge fails. The hammering effect at low revs will also overcome the lubrication film in the mains which is borderline at best as the balls cant build up a proper oil wedge.
It is all relative. At 3000 rpm a 999 is probably making 30hp and the forces generated are relative that power. At 9000 rpm its probably making 120hp so the hammering forces are relative to that power. I personally think letting an engine labour is no good but I don't think that is the cause of the failure. Just bad luck and bad design perhaps ??. I have never heard of a tl or vtr eating its own arse inside out. They are by and large ridden the same with similar power and torque. But when you see the cases/bearing carriers on a TLR. They are fit for purpose
I'm with you on this, I've just done a 900 mile round trip to Brands with the wife on the back and all 3 panniers over full, I have to say most of the way there and back on the motor ways I was keeping up with the flow of traffic , and using 6th gear. The bike felt like I needed to drop down to 5th most of the time, but I was thinking lower revs less fuel. On the way home though I road at the same speeds with more weight on the bike due to heavy rain but I stayed in 5th, I used much less fuel and the engine did feel much less ...how can I descried it? Knocky in 5th than in 6th. I think 6th gear is to tall for the bike. I know Ducati have probably made it like this for batter top speed but I have a feeling for long distance it's what may be killing the engines. Just my thoughts :Finger:
I rarely use 6th on mine other than for tanking along the motorway. I don't even use 5th gear a lot as all the fun is in spinning the motor up to about 8k rpm.
large throttle opening during acceleration. ie load. that and i do a lot of miles and i notice these things.
