Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

at the cost of a lit.tle midrange torque. The engine is now safe t.o 12,000 rpm - a remarkable figure fqr a 94x64 mm power unit - but as I soon discovered riding the bike, the most noticeable factor is not how much horsepower there is on tap,·nor how hard you can rev a demo V-twin 'otto valvoIe,' but the sheer perfection of the engine's response and 'carburation' from tRe Weber/Marelli fuel-injected system. Even racing Bimota's longstroke version in the Tesi chassis for the past couple of seasons left me unprepared for how. smooth and flexible - while at the same time undoubtedly powerful - this works Ducati is to ride. Depressing, really - because you know that in order to achieve this, Ducati technicians must have spent countless hours refining the EFI/ems system's mapping during exhaustive dyno runs and real-world track tests, using facilities unavailable to customers. That's where Ducati's development has gone the last couple of years - into refining the basic product, rather than drastically increasing horsepower figures, and concentrating also on reliability. Ducati mechanical breakdowns are now evidently quite rare, though it wasn't always so: the revised, stronger crankcase design introduced last year cured a lot of problems. So, compared to the works racer I rode three years ago, Polen's '92 mount seems frankly more sophisticated and user-friendly. Whereas the '89 bike was a lusty, hard-edged twin-cylinder thunderbike with a lot of induction roar from the twin 54mm EFI trumpets via the large slot in the front of the tank which fed fresh air to them, and a relatively narrow power curve there wasn't really much grunt below 8000 rpm, making it inevitable riders would overrev it to keep in the powerband, with imaginable consequences - today's works 888 Superbike is a very different plate of pasta. Nowadays, there's still the same strong surge of power at 8000 revs as before, but it not only seems more controllable, there's also more low-down power leading into thi , which helps smooth out the delivery. So taking a corner like the tight left-hander at the back of the Misano circuit, you can now let the engine run as low as 7000 rpm as you turn into the apex, then feed the power to the road via the light-action, almost delicate-feeling throttle butterflies as you straighten up. This is definitely preferable to using a gear lower (bottom instead of second), in which case you'll unhook the 'back wheel as the engine reaches the real fat part of the power delivery around 9000 rpm, while you're cranked over. Now I know why Doug Polen told me he uses so few gears for each track - ' as few as four for some circuits, instead of the six available in the fairly dose-ratio cluster. It's not just because the Ducati engine is so torquey ~nd ·meaty in midrange, as you'd frankly expect from a V-twin: that's just one extra benefit, but the main reason is to maximize the wa'y the engine deliver that power, while at the same time keeping the rear wheel under control. According to Ducati designer Massimo Bordi, the engineering genius responsible for this unique engine's conception and evolution, there's already 108 bhp available at the rear wheel at 8000 rpm - but from then on, engine speeds accelerate quite quickly, and especially from 10-11,000, where the V-twin four-stroke picks up revs like a GP two-stroke, thanks mainly to a combination of the reduced inertia of the specially-lightened Doug Polen's works Ducati 888 Superbike produces 135 hp at 11,200 rpm. crankshaft on the works desmos, and the refined mapping of the EFI. So the hot tip, as later confirmed by .Polen's teammate Giancarlo Falappa, is to go into most turns with the engine revving between 7500-8500 rpm - any higher, and you'll have traction problems cranked over as the engine comes on strong at 9000 rpm. But then, having caught the lower end of the meaty torque curve, you ride it all the way to the 11,200 rpm peak power mark, and beyond - though to be honest, there really isn't any point in revving up to and over the 12,000 rpm safety redline, as Carl Fogarty admits to doing with his Ducati - there's no rev-limiter anymore in the EFIIems program, by the way. I tried a couple of times, and it's completely unnecessary, because you don't go anywhere any faster. The big advantage, combined with the positive-action desmo valvegear, is that if you miss a gear it doesn't do any damage - that's all. The Ducati's power delivery is so smooth and flexible, while at the same 'time so hyper-responsive, I can begin to understand not only how Polen's deceptively casual-looking riding style eems so well suited to the bike, but also how the Ducati riders at the head of the field don't seem to <:are too much which gear they're in or whether theY've got their gearing spot on or are a couple of teeth overgeared on the rear sprocket. The engine's power delivery is so flexible and forgiving, it allows the rider to. concentrate on out-foxing the opposition and coming off best in the multi-bike slipstreaming duels which have become such a thrilling feature 0f World Championship Superbike racing. For sure, the Ducati is an easier bike to battle aboard in a bunch of riders, constantly changing lines and swapping positions or .riding three abreast round turns, because if you have to ease the throttle as someone cuts in front of you, you can recover lost momentum much more easily than on a a less torquey four, which also won't have the extra responsiveness of the fuel injection system. This user-friendly engine behavior is delivered in much more relaxed and quiet mode than three years ago. The current 888 is a more refined ride than it used to be, because Ducati has not The Ducati 888 has a tubular spaceframe that our tester says "copes well." The bike features a Weber/ Marelli fuel-injection system. The light weight of the works 888 allows Ducati to use a stainless steel exhaust system instead of the previously used titanium one. only now silenced the exhausts very effectively without sacrificing power, but have also eliminated induction roar, thanks to the fully-enclosed airbox system introduced this season. This sees the underside of the fuel tank shaped to form an airbox for the carbon fiber trumpets (whose length is crucial to engine performance), and the whole front section sealed with carbon fiber sheeting around and in front of the tank, so that the airbox is pressure-fed with air via the two inlet ducts either side of the front-mounted EFI computer. Further examples of the weight-watchers guide to Superbike supremacy, these are not only also made of carbon fiber, but double as 17

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