The Bimota DB1 is like a pair of Italian stiletto high-heel shoes.  Completely impractical and absolutely gorgeous.

Consider the stunning billet aluminum fluid reservoirs that double as fork caps – making track-side fluid adjustments on the M1Rs a major task.  Want to adjust the steering damper?  Remove the bodywork, paisan.   All of it.

If you need to adjust your chain tension or swap final drive gearing, the trick-looking concentric rear axle adjusters will modify the hide height – which you’ll have to adjust via two rod-ends that have to be removed to be reset.  Got a mechanical or electrical issue to attend to?  Remove all the bodywork again.  Swapping the carbs to Malossis with ticklers meant that I had to drill a hole in the left side panel so I can stick my little finger through to tickle the rear carb. 

In order to allow engine heat to move out through the rear of the bike, designers had to leave a tunnel of sorts open under the seat portion of the main body – and with the structure supported by four shouldered bolts, the street bodywork would bow and crack with anyone weighing more than about 160 pounds in the saddle.  To preserve my prototype lightweight race version made by AirTECH I had to fabricate a vertical support post to take some of the weight and stress.

But I love it.  I suspect that the handling will be excellent and weighing-in about the same as the TT1, the Montjuich motor with a 790 kit and serious cylinder head work should propel it around the track at a pretty good clip.

I’m finally on the back-end of the project; with cam timing, plumbing and hydraulics left to complete..  With two Ducati bevel twin restorations and Yellow Bike III filling the shop, I moved it into my office (with the TT1) and snapped the pics just prior to running the bodywork down to Robbie Nigl (Peachpit Painting) for color and shine.  They’ll make a fine pair of book-ends; the TT1 and the DB1 – two featherweight racers with 86HP small-block engines. 

These machines mark a return to racing after a 7 year hiatus.  I plan three rounds of the P89 Series at NHMS – and who knows?  ..Maybe Team Clutch Slip and the False Neutrals will make a return to the VRRA Endurance  race..

With Triumph as the featured brand at this year's Barber Vintage Festival, Vicki Smith had to take a different tack and move the event to the streets.  Which - from my taste of the local roads last year - ain't such a bad thing..

So, Ducstock 2012 is really wrapped around Motogiro South; a full-on Motogiro event that kicks-off the 3 days of racing. 

It's tempting enough that I'm awfully close to trying to borrow Bar's '60 MV Agusta Strada...  Did I just say that??

More on what promises to be an excellent event at Ducati.net.

It’s been just over a year since we took a hard, serious run at putting together a program that would allow us to bring a line of high-quality, hand-built exhaust systems to market.  Six (that’s right, six) exhaust fabricators, countless hours, boatloads of drama, more than a few thousand dollars and 15 months later we finally shipped out our first batch of baffled Ducati 750 F1 race exhausts.

You could say that the process has been exhausting. 

And ironic.  The first exhaust system we shipped out the door is designed to pass the 95db sound limits at most race tracks..

While I’ve always wanted to head into this direction, it was Ducati racer, builder, tuner and card-carrying rocket scientist Mike Weber who lit the fire under my butt when he offered to allow us to copy a system that he had developed over a four year period.  You see, Mike’s an old-school Ducati guy based in Connecticut who’s been building race F1s for a number of guys in the Northeast US – guys who raced them back in the day, and in many cases – raced the very F1s they’re racing today.  And Mike has a thing for small-block Ducatis with NCR #7 cams.  And who can blame him?  I loved the engine characteristics of Fran McDermott’s Ducati TT1 when I was fortunate enough to be racing it with him in the VRRA’s Endurance Series years ago and until I got into this project, I had almost forgotten how different it felt to my fire-breathing F1s (or for that matter, everything else I’d ridden).  An intoxicating hit when the motor got into the sweet spot and a sound so beautiful that the music it made was – on its own – the high point of every on-board encounter I enjoyed on that machine.

But a lot of builders and riders who are reviving 750 F1s and TT1s have avoided using the classic NCR #7 and Montjuich cams – primarily due to the fact that if you try and silence them, they simply lose power and won’t make any torque at all.  The big overlap and duration that make these old-school cams so much a part of the TT1 or F1 racing experience requires an open megaphone to get the spent gasses out of the motor in the very short time available – cork ‘em and that process goes to hell in a hand basket and that means that with the rapid disappearance of circuits that will allow us to run our machines as God (FabioTaglioni) intended, we drop in  set of modern cams and suffer the indignity of a classic Ducati that sounds more like a lawnmower than a thoroughbred.

But Mike was undaunted in his quest and set on a long R&D effort that ultimately produced an exhaust system that makes more torque and the same power as the open factory system with NCR #7s while staying under the 95db limit.  To our collective knowledge no one’s been able to do that – and as a bonus it doesn’t look and sound half-bad either..

Not too many years ago I simply would have gone down to visit master exhaust fabricator Doug Cook, but Doug’s gone and no one’s really stepped in to fill the gap - so with Ron Spordone’s somewhat battle-scarred Weber pipe under my arm, I went looking for fabricators.  At the end of that long and frustrating journey, I met a young bicycle frame builder just outside of Montreal, Quebec who has talent, attitude and an impressive lack of fear of the unknown.  Frederic Mignault’s in his early 20s, but turns out beautiful work and understands how to manage low volume production.  Given that Doug built frames and exhausts, I figured Frederic could make the transition and fortunately so did he.   We’ve both had to learn a lot in a short period of time, but with Mike’s guidance we got through the basics, tooled-up and started making progress faster than I had figured we could.

The Weber design’s challenging to package and requires (unless you run your shifter pretty high) that you ditch the standard linkage and run a reverse lever.  It’s a little tight to the fairing in a spot, but provides excellent ground clearance in a lightweight 304 stainless package.  Naturally, it’ll work just fine if you insist on running the more tractable (but less invigorating modern cams) – which means we can all get out on those tracks with sound restrictions with an exhaust system that looks good, performs well and doesn’t add a big weight penalty.

It was natural to repackage the Weber Ducati 750 F1 system for the Ducati TT1 and as soon as I could slap together a rolling TT1 from bits of my project bike and a bunch of spares, we jumped into that project as well.  Repackaging the primaries to fit in the TT1 fairing wasn't too difficuult, but we added an extra step just to drop the secondary into the area usually cut-out to clear the factory megga and then worked on an exit angle that flowed with the overall lines of the rear of the machine.  It's got loads of ground clearance and only weighs in at 4Kg; which is excellent for a system that will get you into a track with a 95db sound limit while developing a bit more torque than the open factory system. 

The system uses the standard TT1 mounting tab and has an additional tab just before the silencer so you can run an additional mount from the rear sub-frame (just under the seat).

But, that’s not where the story ends – it’s frankly just the beginning of a partnership that will see us turning out a full range of full-race vintage Ducati exhaust systems in both baffled and gloriously loud, full open factory replicas in both stainless and mild steel. 

Which brings us to the system we’ve just completed this week – a copy of a factory Ducati TT1 system generously loaned to us by Lou Saif (off his South American NCR TT1).  We’ve made a couple of small changes to the design; most notably providing a bit more clearance (the factory system offered none) along the side of the engine case sump fins and in the primary run past the pick-up wire gland nut.  We've done this system in 304 stainless and mild steel and both systems are TIG welded (with a different hanger mount for the stainless version).  TT1s are unique, so you can have your system with the “shark fin” (hanger mount) attached with clearance set up for the wider F1 or Sport aluminum swing arm - or simply included in the box so you can position the megga exactly where you want it.  

At the moment, we feel that there are too many variables at play to accurately put the dent in the megga to clear the shift lever – so you’re on your own with the deadblow.

They're hand-built, they''ll fit and they're available now on the loudbike Store and eBay.

...Maybe now I can get back to finishing my TT1...