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The Elixir of Attitude
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Robb Report MotorCycling Ducati 1098 Special
Basem Wasef
12/01/2007
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Photography by Cordero Studios/corderostudios.com
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Maybe you’re too young. Or perhaps you are not intimately acquainted with automotive
racing history. Whatever the reason, if dark and light blue stripes with red
fail to make your heart go pitter-patter, you might miss the inspiration for the
Robb Report
MotorCycling Ducati 1098 Special.
 An homage to the Martini Racing livery of late 1960s and 1970s, the design
recalls an era when untamed Porsches and Lancias dominated everything from the
24 Hours of Le Mans to World Rally Championships in North Africa. Martini’s
four-wheeled thoroughbreds represented unbridled excess to the point where their
racecars—whose engine outputs sometimes exceeded 1,000 horsepower—were banned
because they were simply too successful at obliterating the competition. (Click image to enlarge)
Outfitting a stock Ducati 1098S with Martini livery might
supply an apt visual representation of its impressive off-the-shelf
capabilities, but to elevate the bike to become a true wolf in wolf’s clothing
we exploited the Ducati Racing Accessories catalogue; a factory sanctioned guide
to transforming an already powerful, sharp handling motorcycle into something
altogether more wicked.
Starting from the inside out, the Ducati’s 1,099cc
engine—already the world’s most powerful L-twin—was endowed with Ducati racing
accessories for deeper performance. Titanium connecting rods not only add
strength, they reduce rotational mass for quicker revs without a loss of top
speed. Incorporating upgraded con-rods saves roughly half a pound where it
counts the most—on the engine components that experience the most extreme
amounts of rapid acceleration and deceleration. Crankshaft balancing is
recommended, per factory specs, to accompany the upgraded con-rods, and an Ergal
split belt roller kit saves another pound and a third of engine weight. A
quick-response throttle condenses the handgrip’s twist into merely one-quarter
turn, and the Martini 1098 engine responds nicely to this simple modification.
Not that the stock motor is slow to rev, but the quick-turn throttle and the
lighter motor internals, have combined to give absolutely instantaneous engine
response—almost two-stroke like—when the throttle is blipped.
More weight is shed with the racing gearbox. Close ratio gears
have been machined to reduce mass. First gear is very tall requiring some clutch
slippage off the line, but the lighter cogs swap easily at the lever with
Ducati’s usual precision. It is noticeable how acceleration response is improved
without affecting the throttle connection as the lighter drivetrain works in
concert with the modified engine particularly in the lower gears.
Engine braking and wheel-hop is managed with a light-alloy,
hard-anodized racing clutch featuring titanium fasteners for roughly a
half-pound weight cut. The clutch is capped with a windowed billet cover
allowing a glimpse of the interior mechanism—a feature almost as strongly
associated with the Ducati name as their Desmodromic valve mechanism.
In the interest of creating a bike that sounds and breathes as
freely as the engine design dictates, the 1098 Special is equipped with a
complete racing exhaust system which was developed in collaboration with Ducati
Corse. The 70mm 2-1-2 stainless steel manifolds combine with a dedicated
electronic control unit and racing air filter to increase engine performance by
roughly 8%, and although with a much louder bark—especially under hard
acceleration—the powerplant breathes better and performs the way it was
originally intended.
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