PS....when looking at the plug colour, I meant to say the colour of the porcelain insulator around the central electrode sparky bit.... AL.
thank you guys! much appreciated, so as far as I understand, does not matter what brand exhaust I put in as much as long as they allow more flow, open the airbox, power commander, but none of these give more power, and in fact can lower the power output unless I remap the ECU. Any suggestions for a good independant around berkshire area / west london, who might give me a cheap run through to see how much it would all cost and all?
btw, last random question, I was told that even without any mods it might be worth remapping the ECU as factory it might be dummed down to match the road standards and emissions, would that be worth while?
btw, I do not believe my bike is an injection model I think it's carb as It has a manual choke. I'm not really confused here am I? carbed model still has an ecu that can be remapped...?
I got my cans from ebay, you can pay top dollar for some termis etc but occasionally a pair of "unknown origin" pipes turn up and tend to be cheap. I got mine for £60 and originally I just wanted the high level link pipes that came with them, but the cans turned out to be pretty good so I kept them on and saved myself a few quid. If you cut the top off the airbox its worth keeping the first couple of inches at the front of the airbox to stop the rain dripping onto the filter from the front of the tank. The Power commander is pricey, but I have heard that some workshops can hack the original ecu to map it, not sure if the SS ones can be hacked but worth a google. The good thing with the PC is that you can keep several maps on you laptop and load them up easily. Yes, you can get good gains from remapping the stock bike and a custom map will smooth out that dead spot between 3&4k. You definately need to remap if you open up the air box and add open pipes as there will be a lot more air sucked in and out of the engine and the bike will run lean and hot. Custom maps tend to cost about £150. Of course once you start tinkering you will never stop, there is always something else you can do, and then ther is Carbon :wink:
Hi guys, so my bike is an injected model than? I've had a chat with a bunch of friends and they though it was a Carb model. Just for my learning how can you tell it's a inj model? Thanks Pat for all the info, I will definitely start playing around, cash is tight so i will take it a step at a time I have just pulled the trumpets out for now and the bike sounds really nice, and I noticed it's not just the rider, Standing on the side you can hear the deeper throuty sound as well, I will check the spark plugs this weekend to make sure it is not runing too hot, once I have cash for remapping ECU and pipes I will open the airbox completely, as it seems the pipes will be around 60 - 100 GBP and I dont wanna remap ecu and then have to remap agian..
Hi Salmore, an interesting read. I hope you didnt pay top dollar for this bike, and I am a little concerned the dealer didnt explain more to you about it. Would you tell who the Dealer was. Reading through the post you seem to have been given little information about the bike, and potentially shafted into buying a 10 year old bike as a new one. PS, dont do the LED light thing. You will look like a cock.
You can tell by looking at it.....it looks completely different to a carb model for starters....see Toomanybikes thread and you will see what I mean....Plus if you look at what it says on the tail / seat fairing, it says 'Desmodue I.E'. .....yes, standing by the side of the bike it sounds louder with the trumpets out, but when you are laid over the tank, it is hardly noticeable to anyone but the rider.... Running hot could be different to running weak although weak will make it run hotter and it will burn the valves.... If as I suspect, you are a bit inexperienced with bikes, I would save cash by not trying to do too much to it for the time being, just learn how the bike works and how to do the easy bits like minor servicing etc etc. AL
Your bike is an injection model, whet you say is the choke is in fact a fast idle lever. Removing the airbox trumpets will probably reduce power at certain engine RPM bands as it will affect the air pressure pulses that come up through the airbox from the engine inlets, the airbox size and shape have been carefully designed by Ducati to optimise this and the trumpets are part of that design. If you want more power, fit a set of open exhausts, cut the top out of the air box and fit a free flow air filter, and either fit a power commander OR get the ECU remapped. This will make a significant difference to the way the bike "feels". If that's still not enough power, sell the bike and buy a 1000DS SS instead, same bike but with better suspension and wheels and more power and torque.
As you can probably tell from the read, I'm quite new to bigger bikes, especially to dukes, I've ridden since I was about 5 years old, but nothing special, and it was family acquired bikes rather than anything I was buying myself. My dad absolutely hated mechanics and didn't know anything about it thus didn't teach me anything. Now with my own family I'm learning how to do little bits and pieces and enjoying it, changing clutches, oil, filters and such. I got this bike from a dealer around Reading area, I could find the website, and name if needed. I'm the 2nd owner, lady driver before. She had it for only 1 year, then traded in for a triumph. I have the papers stating that the bike was first registered in 2011, and i have an official receipt from the dealer stating I have bought a 2011 ducati 900ss. Full disclosure I paid GBP 3,500 for it. So it was not expensive per say, but I would like to have known that I was buying an older bike of course... I'm assuming if I had wanted to I could fight this and possibly get my money back, I had gotten the bike about 2.5 months ago. As I said I'm not an expert by far and quite a newbie to the bike... the only thing I have seen wrong with the bike thus far is one day the engine oil light started flashing while on the motorway, didn't just come on, it was sort of flickering and fading out, didn't matter if I reved it more of less. I stopped the checked the heat levels and engine oil level and it seemed fine as normal.. I continued to ride it and found that the light never came on again since (that was about 3 weeks ago now), I have noticed all the naked wiring and covered it all up with electrical tape the next day so it might have all been electrical. I continued to monitor the oil levels and no problems, heat is normal as well. rides normal. Overall I'm really enjoying the bike, it looks nice, I cannot see anything wrong with it, only thing I've noticed was there is one screw missing from the 2 that hold each mirror up, that can be easily replaced. What do you guys think, was it worth the money, will it act like a new bike as it was not ridden much or should I fight it back and go after the dealer? Also just FYI the bike had 6k miles on it when I got it, the dealer gave me receipts for full service and a couple other general meintenance receipts. The bike does not look like it has been ridden hard at all, and it handles really well. What are your guys' suggestions?
I think you had better just get on with the idea of keeping the bike, technically the dealer did nothing wrong although he may be accused of being somewhat disingenuous. It could be argued with some justification that 2011 built Ducatis don't sell for £3,500 so you should have known it wasn't manufactured in 2011.
Ok last question then, the bike does not have an MOT, it is insured stating it is a 2011 bike, as that's what the payment slip says I have from the dealer, and that's when it was first registered.. is that going to cause any issues? I have not received any info stating it should be MOT'ed either. So even though it might have been sitting somewhere it is for all purposes considered as a 2011 bike as that's when it was registered for the first time?? I don't mind at all keeping it, had a few friends look it over and it's clean as a whistle, and really nice ride.
You won't need an MOT until 3yrs from when it was registered. You can do quite a bit to these bikes before you need a re-map or Power Commander to richen the mixture. Ducati's run on the rich side as standard so there's a bit of lee-way. You can defo run it without trumpets without any worries and mine runs fine with DP cans. If you go any further like fittng a K+N filter as well as cans and airbox mod then you are likely to run lean.
