ducati 1198s (2010) gerabox issue / got down 2 times already

hi All, so I have 1198s from 2010 which I use on the track only. The bike has 6000 km. 1st 1000 done on the road, then service and then 5000 on the track. Great bike but..... the gearbox went down twice already. The problems started after fitting the quickshifter. After being to many track events and speaking to many different people from different countries riding more or less I know that ducati gearbox is one of the weakest point of the bike (not only sbk, all of them, I also have mts 1200s and the gearbox is definitely the poorest piece of the bike). The questions I have are:
- is there anybody who also has / had problems with the gearbox? what problems?
- do you ride the bike with quickshifter? what shifter and what is your opinion?
the shifter I have is bazzaz. The first time the problem was that the gears didn't engage each time. I have been told by several people that the rears sets I'm using have to long travel (lightech) so I changed them to pp tunning and yes the change was easier and faster but the problem remained and soon after the change of the rear sets the gearbox went down for the 1st time. After the reparation of the gearbox the shifting worked very well for the 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th. change to the 5th and 6th sometimes worked and sometimes it didn't (mostly it didn't). I have done 1500 km since the reparation of the gearbox and it just broke again.
Honestly it is pissing me off. During the 5000 km I endlessly changed the position of the gear selector (I already have 4 shifting rods - 185mm, 195mm, 190mm, 205mm), I increased the cut time by nearly 100 %, I changed the shifter sensor. None of the changes have ever improved the situation.
I would appreciate any valuable feedback from anybody who has ever experienced similar problems or have suitable knowledge which I could use.
thx, Grzegorz

 

hi Freak, this is normal shift, I had reversed in mind but i gave up as it would require new shift sensor and I was not convinced it will solve the issue. I'm of the opinion that this is gearbox issue. The shifting up to the 4th was perfect, short, precise, 100% hit. I just had a look to 1098 service manual. The gearbox is probably quite similar to the one on 1198. I saw there that there are 2 forks responsible for changing of the gears. One for the 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th and one for 5th and 6th. To me it looks like the 2nd one resp for 5 and 5th is not ok. I know that it was one of the problems when the gearbox broke the 1st time. If this is the case the question would be why are this forks breaking so easily.

 

hi Mr C, up-shifting with clutch works (worked) well. I changed the shift sensor to new one and problem remained. Original bazzaz cut time for 5th was 50 ms and 40 ms for the 6th gear. This is much quicker than with clutch so this is I guess why it worked well witch clutch but not ok with QS. However the cut time for for example 4th is 60ms. I increased the cut time for the 5 and 6th to 70 ms and that changed nothing.

 

additionally i can write that I re-initiated the whole QS system - still the same issue. I changed the rear sprocket (keeping the same front-14th) from 38 to 39 and then to 37. No change in the behavior at all.

 

haven't tried clutchless no QS shift so i can't say, I guess this is the only thing I didn't try. Now is to late the gearbox is blocked.

 

Hi, the things are getting better so i was thinking to give you some update on the status and findings. First of all I have a friend who is running drr 16 on track, most of the times we are riding together. This winter he got Bazzaz TC with QS, since then 5 & 6th never worked well with shifter (basically never manged to put 5 & 6th in with shiffter, worked well with clutch or clutchless). Recently the same service who takes care of my bike installed exactly same as i have shifter on another 1198s from 2010. The guy called back 2 days after saying the 5 & 6th doesn't engage. This made them wondering (i think that until now they thought that it is me who can't change the gears despite it is my 5th ducati (7th motorcycle in total) and i have ridden well over 50 000 km). It turns out that the gear box sprockets, resp for 5 & 6th, on at least 1198 and drr16 are different than the the ones resp for 1, 2, 3, 4th. The notches on the sprockets are different (if anybody is interested I can provide drawing). The same sprockets (5 & 6th) are also different than the ones used on 848.
The problem with gearbox I mentioned at the beginning of august in fact turned out to be problem with gear selector mechanism, which sounds to be well know issue and sooner or later each ducati ridden on the track is experiencing it. That was a positive thing as repairing was much quicker = lot less expensive, however problem with shifter was still mysterious. Having no more ideas in mind we have agreed (me and garage) to do two things:
1. try another shifter;
2. reverse the gear change setup;
i just got back from the track. I'v done 450 km on the track and never missed the 5 & 6th using shifter all the time! In total i missed only a few times 3 & 4th but i'm sure that that was due to wrong position of the gear selector lever. I need to get the shifting rod changed to lift it a bit up.
The new shifter i used is translogic however I believe that this is not the shifter but the gear selector setup which made the difference. This will be still confirmed as it looks like that friend of mine who is running drr16 will also go for translogic but will stay with normal gear selector setup. I will keep you updated.
This is how the story continues. Everybody can draw own conclusions but I would say if you intend to run shifter on 1198 you should go for reversed setup directly. Somebody can say that 2011 edition has normal setup and is working well with original shifter. Yes this seems to be true but i also heard that the cut time of the original shifter is very long (that long that it doesn't give any advantage over clutch) and this is probably where the difference comes from.
One more time, 2010 1198s looks ready for ducati, original shifter but it doesn't work with it (tested).
I hope that above story will help some of you.