Chapter 2
Why am I doing this?
I had agreed to sell the 888fant to the French...
........................and then the deal fell apart.
In the interim period, of some 8 weeks, all the to-ing and fro-ing....
like a teenager thinking of the BIG night out.......
"will they-won't they" ....."will she.... or?"
I had found, via the EAB list, another 888 engine and contemplated,
in that familar, Mid Life-Mid Wife-Second Marriage-Self Promise....
to put right, all of my wrongs.......I lied....again!
When Cagiva went ..."ca-poot-ish-sort-of"....
and before the TexasPacificGroup bought 50% of Ducati.......
there were "design projects" ... not so much...
"on the cards" as in a bunch of...."topics for discussions"
One of which, was an idea of an Elefant style
adventure bike and the 851 Ducati engine....
Cagiva Group owned Ducati..back then.
Bearing in mind, that this was 1994/5 and way, way
before KTM or MotoMorini...another Cagiva, once owned company
....had anything like the KTM 950.
The engineer in me .....(Simon...he wears an anorak and likes trains)
made me, want to seek out the engineering solutions, to this
never made, Cagiva/Ducati 4 valve Elefant Prototype.....
..........hence the original....Mark 1.. 888fant.
And that curiousity, wasn't just going to disappear from my thoughts,
with the sale of the 888fant to some Frenchie...
for a handfull of Euros, no doubt, smelling of fags and garlic
and someone calling me......... Gavan!
So with the 888fant waiting to be sent south to the Ardeche.....
I went into the garage...struck up a Gitane and sat moodily,
like a Blackbird looking at its empty nest, where once, there were eggs.
....this, was what was left, scattered around..............
.....a pile of boxes...6 in total and a couple or three,
special hand made fuel tanks, the likes of which, you rarely see!
Two actual German fabricated P-D Prototype side tanks
for the Rallye elefants, one for each side......
I had watched these go through their original sale ......
from the Euro zone to a fellow EAB listee in the States ...
before coming back to the UK in a Dollar-GBPound exchange rate
which will never be repeated.
I had to have, new outlets and air vents machined and welded,
to replace the petcock and filler-vents which would be WELL below
the front tank fuel level!
Along with a rather unusual BIG ali front tank which has been getting some major air scoop issues ......to feed the HOT engine! This tank, was originally sold to me by John Monger, who with Andy Cadney represent the UK based fant owners in International mud slinging events.
I had to arrange to have the tanks re-worked. This involved, among other things, the front tanks' mounting positions and clearance for top yokes etc. It also involved, building up with ali weld...the fairing screw-in location points and an aero type filler cap unit, which actually came from an old 888 Battle of the Twins racer.... I was, well pleased.
The workmanship and quality of welding is fantastic and the thought of using this front tank is VERY appealling. Although, I am intending to use the 888 fant Mark 1 dummy tank, just to get everything running.......
then, perhaps....looking to change the front tank as an ongoing project..mmmmm........on going project
...I've heard that one.... before.
Next to these boxes lay the 955cc engine with its' inards, cast all over the place, like intestines in a Jack the Ripper crime scene. The 955 layout was copied from the Engine Spec Sheet of another Factory Project bike..although I went for small valves and a gentler cam set up...
best keep the thing... torquey!
When I built the 888fant, I learned quite a bit about, inlet airflow, engine cooling, engine heat dispersement and bruised egos, mainly mine!
The amount of people who said..."It'll never work!"..."Why bother!".
.....well..sometimes, you just got to ignore ..."good advice!"
So once again, my MAIN criteria was going to be:
COOLING, FUEL STORAGE and AIR FLOW into the injectors.
No matter what people were saying...I knew that I was right...
I just went about things in "not their way".........
As my old Granny used to say "If you're go to walk in a crowd,
it might as well, be to the beat, of a different drum!"
The 888fant broke down.....once.... in France, due to a:
Not by a "pidgeon dropping welding and we'll grind it down" failure!
Nor by a stretched by 100mm (in the middle) swinging arm failure!
Not even a "you hold it, whilst I'll tape them, together" wiring failure!
Or even a "it'll only fit in the frame, backwards, so trick the ECU"
twin fuel injector bank assembly unit, failure!
NO, the problem was a Original Equipment, Factory supplied:
............... Ducati 916 Pump.......FAILURE!
So this time, I had to address the fuel pump and fuel storage issues
ie more than 183 kms range, not great, but sometimes, very welcome!
Unfortunately, the original mid-mounted (running through the middle) fuel tank, meant well, but could not actually deliver what was initially intended.
The tank ran through the space, a cut rear subframe occupies and once bolted to the subframe, made for the seat mounts and was structurally sound.....even the rearlight and number plate assembly bolted from it.
But, the in-tank 916 unit needed a special flange unit and O ring assembly to accomodate the factory pump... and I never liked the "out to all weather condition" position of the unit..so a change was needed.
So...... I had to source, a Subaru WRX fuel pump,
to handle the flow rate and the 6 bar of pressure,
for the new twin twin banked, as in FOUR ...injectors....
built like baby Cuckoo chicks, with their heads
pointing up and their mouths WIDE open...waiting!
Truth be told, any Cosworth, Lancia, Alfa or high end Audi electric pump would do...but I chose Subaru ..as there are more of them, on ThiefBay.
The new injectors dictated, a frame modification, which I had avoided on the Mark 1 888, on that one, I reversed the injectors back to front, so that the rear injector fed the front cylinder and vice-versa...Oh ...happy days!!
The new double twin banked injectors, crashed through the frame and this allowed a full frame re-strengthening process...you can see the felt tip pen marks, outlining the changes......... prior to welding.
Extra gussets were added and additional tubes placed,
after studying Tony Foales'..the Art of Chassis Building
....the frame builders' guide to stop things going "Floppy"
....think of it as Viagra for your frame.
Through that electronic-internet-sale-shite-site, ThiefBay...I managed to locate some NOS (new old stock) 888 wiring looms, to replace my splayed and spade connector unit, of 10 years old. And some rather nice clocks from a Cagiva 125 something or another, which still smelt of cider and fags....ahh..teenagers..bless them.
Stealth were commissioned to produce a batch of discs, which were a THIRD the weight of the original ali hubbed and spaced cast iron disc type. So... If I go "PING" at a bend....and fail to stop...
you better know that, the calculations were carried in a darkened room.
And there's me, trying to be GREEN..... by using a solar powered calculator.
Stuff Global Warming Warnings....bring it on.
Stealth took my fag packet calculations from the Big Disc Unit, as fitted to the ST2fant and Tonys' S2Rfant and remodelled a set of twin front discs, in my favourite colour..BLACK..
When complete, they made them look, like an "British Army" sign in the Helmand Province...holey shit ......how many holes do you want?
I also had a Ducati 916 race radiator, which I managed to "acquire" via my contacts. This ali fabricated radiator was "turned a round" and had all original inlets welded up and then, new outlets opened up, so that the CURVE faced backwards rather than forwards.
Well........after all ..I had fitted the injectors back to front, to get them to fit on the Mark 1...now I was addressing that issue and putting wrongs right. I thought it only fair, to keep something "arse about face" ....so to speak.
Another swinging arm was taken to Spondon Engineering and stretched by 50mm to replace the Mark 1 version which was 100mm over standard.
A set of new wheels were sourced via Wales and third time lucky I managed to get the correct rim in the right size laced with the correct offset.
I should point out that part of the last comment is crap.
They supplied, the wrong rim, in the incorrect diameter and laced it centrally, so that the wheel is 15mm off centre....and they wonder why, manufacturing has died...in Wales!
Next up ................wiring.....clocks and dogs...gear dogs!
After the German-Music-Fant-Paramedic-Bash-Thingy in August 09.
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