Chapter 6
The Big Top & Circus has come to town and the clowns are teasing the Elefants!!
It has been the busiest of times and the quietist of times! The last instalment in this tale of woe was dated October Since then, Santa’s little helpers didn’t lift a spanner and that thing called my hobby, the Beakfant 888, has been causing more problems than 24 cans of Strongbow cider at a twelve year olds birthday party………….……….. and I have just about had enough.
We left Chapter 5 pointing out all of the things that had gone wrong, in that stage of the build up, and what was being done to rectify the position.
So here is, what I hope, the final alterations list.
The Ohlins shock absorber underwent some final growing pains and was given a “shrink to fit” extension, although I needed the help of the household freezer and a gas ring-hob!
Over and above that a new Eibach spring was fitted as no Ohlins were available in the required spring-ding-zingy ratings!
The standard P7 ecu, electronic brain, as fitted to the 900 injected models and early 851s was found to be a bit of a “slow thinker” and too interested in toys and comics and thus was not up to the more manly things, like processing the vast array of technical info for the 888 engine.
Thankfully, a replacement, P8 ecu unit was sourced by SS Tuning, these more powerful and faster processing units were standard issue on all 888s and early 916s and ……they are also programmable!!!
The 900 ie elefant wiring loom and ecu unit would fire up the engine, but not do anything else, like monitoring the sensors and thus delivering fuel. So the loom and sensors had to be changed for a 888 wiring loom (thank god for ebay) otherwise it was a life of making Vrooomm,Vrooomm noises!!
The final positioning of the 888 ecu unit is now at the rear of the bike ala the Ducati 851 and 888s, although bolted to the top of the much modified, now just 21 litre, alloy fuel tank.
Where it is hidden by the dummy pillion seat unit......this is definately a single seater motorcycle!
The water header tank and sensor are positioned where the original P7 ecu box used to be on the elefant ie to the left of the tank behind the fairing.
The fuel pump and filter assembly, normally positioned, down on the left-hand ali frame tube, just above the bash-plate have been totally replaced by a Ducati 916 unit which bolts directly into the centrally located fuel tank. This unit is one-piece and houses the sender, the filter and the pump, and is normally sited inside the 916 petrol tank.
All sensors are now Ducati 888 items rather than the standard elefant units, and the elefant coils have been replaced by the more powerful Ducati 888 items. The ignition modules have been mounted in the glove compartment on the left of the bike close to the final ECU resting place.
And the original 900 ie oil temp gauge has been swopped for a water temp version from a 916.
Whilst the oil temp gauge will be bolted to the oil-cooler, somewhere under the front-beak, therefore the instrument panel/dash will look the same but won’t be!
Other than that, the rest of the work has been pretty plain sailing, although very, very slow and road-testing proper should commence in April, some 24 months after the donor bike was purchased.
As yet the bike still has to spray painted and a custom seat that was manufactured has to have the pillion section added. All this was done to allow for the new fuel tank position, bearing in mind that I will be sitting on the new tank!
Again the final positioning of the seat against the subframe has to be resolved as you can see from the above photo the normal rubber blocks between the seat and frame will not do !!
However, “every cloud has a silver lining” or should that be “every cloud has a lucky strike lining!” …as the knock on effect has been extremely beneficial to the 944 Lucky.
In as much as, it has gained new tyres: Michelin Annakee’s, new body-work, a new paint job and re-sized graphics, a up-rated battery, the same as the 888, a new seat via Corbin, a new 530 chain and sprockets: 15t x 48t, up from 15t x 44t, but closer to the 14t x 46t originally intended for all the early Luckies, but never fitted due to legislations.
A new Remus exhaust end can and better down tubes, from a later model. Uprated front fork springs from those nice people called Progressive Springs, a re-vamped and re-gassed Ohlins rear shock.
As well as a far better understanding of airflow through the air-box and oil cooling in general.
Which has all resulted in a 944 which does not over heat, fuels extremely well with no fluff spots, pulls like train, brakes, turns and grinds its pegs on my favourite right handers and has a max grin factor built into each mile.
UPDATE in FEB
The gearing was put back to 15 x 44 as on a trip to France one weekend it was impossible NOT to redline the engine.....and my pockets were empty!
The new paintwork cracked completely and it all needed to be sanded down and resprayed .........the only saving grace is that they will spray the 888 free of charge !!
Alex Fischer helped me source some Desert fuel tanks, which mean that I will never have to stop for fuel ever again!!
The new tanks gave me an excuse to play with the exhaust which means more burnt hands and a new re routed Laser 2 into 1 stainless system! Both exhaust headers are now of equal length, as the rear pipe exits the head as normal, then bends downwards, before doing a U bend at the rear pillion footpeg bracket and entering the end can. Phew!!
By the way the new tanks also meant a new subframe to go with the re routed exhaust and modified original seat!!........so it is, perhaps, just as well that the 888 is taking FOREVER !!!!
Back to the 888
$$ the wiring loom was no use ....so I had to find another 888/ 851 unit
$$ the P8 was not...so I had to find another..Ducati list them at over £1000
$$ all the rear body work had to be stretched and re-glassed
$$ the bike has been on a dyno for 3 Days, trying to get the fuelling sorted
STAY TUNED ....
.
Chapter Index
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