the state or capacity of being everywhere, especially at thesame time; omnipresence: the ubiquity of magical beliefs. Thats a good word Alex. All I need to do is find a place to shoe horn it in to a conversation today!
I thought about this right after I'd posted, and you are right of course, but I still think that someone somewhere would have spilled the beans on the 848 replacement / mini Panigale by now if it was going to happen. Not everyone can keep secrets!
The Ducati Forum aka "It Pays to Increase Your Wordpower" Ubiquity from the Latin ubique - "everywhere". A good word. I did learn the Latin first.
102x55 would be 899, bore/stroke ratio 1,85 (1199 Panigale is 1,84). And 899 would 20% over 750, like the Panigale 1199 is 20% over a litre. And with Dorna running both WSB and MotoGP, I could imagine WSB going back to 750cc. With reduced bore (lighter piston) and stroke (lower piston speeds) internals do not need to be as light as in the 1199, so some opportunity to reduce costs. At 150-ish BHP it would be a nice bike!
The only problem with 102 bore is that it's a 10mm drop in bore from the current 1199 (at 112x60.8), equivalent to a 5mm liner in the barrels. Do you think Ducati would use such a big liner?
848 is 94 bore, 1198 is 106. Is 12mm difference, so even more. 1098 is 104 bore, so also 10mm difference. Given that the 848 is so popular, I just cannot image it will not be replaced. I'm sure there will be tech challenges, but as Ducati is creating fresh bikes for every niche they can find, I expect them to tackle these challenges.
The 1098 engine uses the traditional crankcase, barrel and head arrangement for the engine, making it efficient to create a different sized barrel for smaller bores; you design the barrel to the same footprint but can reduce the overall dimensions to make it more efficient in the use of materials, water jacket, head, and so on. The SuperQuadro engine doesn't have a barrel as such. Instead it uses a cylinder liner which fits between the case and head castings. This could create all sorts of challenges if you wanted to add an extra 10mm to the liners. Some nice pics here: http://www.cycleworld.com/2013/01/11/walking-the-ducati-1199-panigale-line/ I'm not saying they won't, but it's not just a case of chucking in a different barrel and piston to create a different sized engine, as they have done since they started making engines!
I think your wrong, I used to work for Bentley as a tech (Audi owned) and we heard about new prototype stuff b4 it was sent to press, we used to do training at the factory at crew and the Engineers would tell us stuff and show us some cars that we wern't supposed to see. same as when i worked for the Jaguar press launch team as a Tech, my mates knew about new offerings coming out. We worked on prototype stuff, even the supercharged X type estate that we blasted round in, even though this never did go to production, it was still there. So yes i do believe that dealers and Tech's would know about future offerings, just from being around the right people.
Facinating thread. But making my decision to buy an 848 EC SE a bit precarious. Dealer told me its unlikely there would be a mini pani in 2014 because it would cost Ducati too much to make with not enough profit margin. Then again wasn't the same true of the 848/1098, and they did that and sold loads?
