Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

(Left) If you look at the front-middle edge of the fairing you can see the air diffusers that are just one of the keys to improving the bike's aerodynamics. (Above) The projector beam headlights really light up the road despite their small size. Our only complaint about the bodywork is the mirrors, which really don't do anything other than show you your elbows. But how does it work in the real world? We've had the bike for three solid months now, and it's been hammered around racetracks, done various sorties through the local canyons, and, to be honest, spent most of its time splitting lanes on the freakin' 405 freeway. My relationship with the 999 has been a pleasant one. The days I've spent riding it on the track have been heavenly. But you know what? It has been almost as enjoyable on the street. A lot of this has to do with the feeling that I described above. It's just a bike that I love to spend time on. Now, if you've owned Ducatis in the past, like, say, a 916-998 or an older 851-888, you know that the feeling I speak of fades pretty quickly when you get off of your favorite mountain road and hit traffic. All of a sudden you start to long for a ST4 or any other bike that was bred more for comfort. I always wondered why every ride on a Ducati Superbike ended as a torture session in the dungeon that Ducatisti have the nerve to call ergonomics. But times have changed - I never thought I'd see the day that I could commute 70 miles a day on a Ducati and not feel like a county fair-sized pretzel every time I got home. That day has arrived. Don't be fooled by the thin, not-sopadded-looking seat, because it is actually shaped perfectly and will have your butt sitting pretty for quite some time. The ergonomics on the 999 are actually quite roomy - gone are the days of being forced into a singular (read: solitary, as in confinement) seating position. There is plenty of room to move around, readjust, and just get comfortable (and furthermore, the seating position on the 9995 is adjustable). This not only pertains to the street, but on the racetrack I was able to move around a lot easier and put my body where it needed to be. It actually makes you feel like you have a lot more control of the bike, whereas in the past you were trapped into one position and just had to figure out how to maneuver the bike from within that space. Okay, you get the drift, the bike is a thousand times more comfortable than anything this side of an ST4. So let's move on. The 999 has a couple of annoying traits that rear their ugly heads at times around town. First and foremost, it may be semiexotic and Italian, but I don't recall seeing a Lamborghini emblem anywhere, so why the hell can't I see anything behind me? I mean I really like a couple of the leather jackets I have, and I really like my Aerostitch suit, but I'm not so vain as to want to stare at them the entire time I'm riding. The guys in Italy either had a little too much Chianti while they were in the mirror design phase, or else it's some sort of joke that doesn't translate from Italian to English too well. Ever hear of the Italian rearview mirror check? Just bang it down three gears, gas it, and go - you'll be okay, trust me. Another complaint I take a little more seriously, because it's mechanical, well, actually electronic, is that our 999 has a habit of flaming out on a regular basis. Coughing, sputtering, hacking, call it what you will, it does it at the most inopportune moments. It has to be something to do with the fuel-injection mapping at lower rpms. While sitting at a stoplight, it'll give out a quick kaaahuuuuuuh, and then stall the instant before the light changes to green, of course. I've never had a Ducati do this so frequently, and I thought that it was just our test unit, but we've had two 999s (more on that later), and they've both done it. I think that over the years the engineers have lightened the crankshaft more and more in the neverending quest for revs and top-end horsepower, but it has subsequently killed any of the crankshaft inertia that kept the motor ticking in the past. So it stalls. All of a sudden the bike that was such a refined pussycat on the track becomes a quirky devil from time to time on the street. The solution: keep blippin' the throttle from time to time, especially that instant before the light changes. Which brings me to another annoying trait, starting the thing. Don't use the fast idle! Don't do it. The bike will sit there and spin until the battery gets weak, and it still won't be running. But if you just fire it up without the fast idle and then dial some in if needed on a cold day, everything will be fine, trust us on this one. I don't want to harp on the bike too badly but I'd be doing you, the consumer, a disservice if I didn't mention a couple of these things. I've tried to start the 999 after forgetting that it has the ignition immobilizer feature, which won't allow the bike to run if the key has been turned on for more than 15 seconds. The problem is that on occasion the bike has gone into psycho mode and kept turning the starter over, even after I've taken my finger off of the starter button, and even after I've hit the kill switch. It requires that you turn the key off to stop the mayhem. Did you ever see that Stephen King movie Christine, about the possessed 1957 Plymouth Fury with a mind of its own? One last thing: our first test unit died on me and stranded me due to a major electronic failure. I would blame a weak battery, but the meter on the dash was reading 14.1 volts right before the problems started. The first sign that something was wrong was that the tachometer stopped working, then the LCD dash went dead, then the blinkers stopped, then the headlights, all in a nice organized sequence over about 15 minutes. Then I made the mistake of turning the engine off. I never saw that bike run again. So we swapped it for a new unit and haven't had anything similar happen to the new bike at all. The thing that is so annoying The 999 Testastretta motor has been around for over a year now, so we'll keep this brief. Testastretta loosely translates to "compact head," and the key element that allows the head to be compact is the reduction of the included valve angle. The included valve angle (the angle between the intake and exhaust valves from cylinder center) has been reduced to 25 degrees. This makes the combustion chamber much more compact and allows a higher compression ratio of 11.4:1. In addition, this makes space for larger intake and exhaust valves. The intake valves were increased to 40mm, and the exhaust valves were increased to 33mm. The compact combustion chamber has allowed Ducati to use flat-top pistons, which help make combustion more efficient. The 999's bore measures 100mm, while the stroke is 63.5mm. This over-square short-stoke layout allows the engine to run higher rpms because the piston speed is slower than a longer stroke motor's. This is the key to getting that top-end horsepower everyone is after: more revs. One of the other keys to making the Testastretta heads more compact and efficient is the elimination of the ball bearings that supported the camshafts. These have been replaced with plain bearings, which should also improve reliability by elimination of these additional moving parts. The entire desmo belt layout is changed from the old non-Testastretta motor. One of the key changes to the 999's motor is the new exhaust system. The system features asymmetrical header pipes, both in terms of length and diameter due to the unique layout of the "L· twin Ducati motor. It is unique because the header pipes are different lengths, which isn't a good thing for efficiency. The solution was to make the header pipes different diameters to equalize the backpressure and flow. The longer front cylinder header pipe starts out at 45mm then swells to 55mm aft of the intine catalytic converter. The shorter rear cylinder header is a constant 45mm, and the catalyzer for that pipe resides inside the under-the-seat canister. cue I e n e _ S • FEBRUARY 5, 2003 19

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