An old'uns mid life crisis, the bike not me, though.....

[crust]

Hi folks
While the bike is being spruced up, I’ve been thinking, hmmm there’s a box of bits and pieces accumulated over the years and a little cash in the kitty where would I get my best bang for my buck.

Bike is a 1994 M900, at the moment it has Remus cans (free-er than standard but not open) and FCR41 carbs.

I’d like to give it a bit more go for street riding, occasional trackday but very little round town and on a limited budget.

1. Cams. I have some IE cams on the shelf, worth fitting to a long manifold carby? Any benefit at all? The heads are coming off anyway.

2. Lightweight flywheel – just about in budget.

3. 944 capacity – ages ago I bought some 944 pistons and a pair of the correct barrels but haven’t got around to getting them bored and plated. Worth the money of boring and plating?

4. V shaped oil cooler to go under horizontal cylinder in addition to the standard one. Got one on the shelf, just need the lines.

5. 999RS oil pump – 17420263A – worth getting one as insurance along with the extra oil cooler? Are they a straight swap for the standard one?

6. Ally clutch basket to replace the much filed standard steel one, with ally plates. Less rotating mass. Worth it?

7. Blow the cash on drugs and hookers?

8. Other options? What have you got on the shelf you'd like to part with?

[stopintime]

Good port & polish + 944 + cams will absolutely add power. Coming from one who has done ALL that and quite a bit more.... it's not worth it.

Neither are lighter flywheel and clutch parts. The improved throttle response is fun, but it will also be harder to control and other parts will have to absorb the jerkiness that the flywheel evened out before.

Our oil pumps are very powerful and do their job well enough. Even with a full tuning job, an extra cooler is not required.


I'd recommend spending on suspension, brakes and ergonomic mods. That's where the fun is....

[slob]

1. Will IE cams fit? Before even considering profiles and timings, I thought older bikes had cams that run in bearings, later models sit directly in the heads. I’d start by quizzing Mr Kato.
2. It will spin up and down noticably faster, it won’t necessarily make it a better ride if you spend most of your time on the roads.
3. No brainer, more cubes, more power. Greater inertia but it’s not a revvy bike.
4. Can’t hurt.
5. Does it have a greater flow rate? Again, I’d start with Kato for information.
6. Get if fitted, make sure you use ally friction plates, steel ones will eat the new basket.
7. Hell yeah!

[slob]

Lars, Crust has an Ohlins shock and uprated fork internals already

[Darkness]

Definately 7.

[slob]

Of course, a couple of grands worth of superlight wheels will give you far better gains than the same money spent on the engine... but if you don’t have them in the rafters already that doesn’t help much

[Bitza]

Hi well I did most of the above with a 900ie, ..................well what a gas!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Lightening the flywheel, gives you a much more responsive engine, 944cc helps with raising the comp ratio hence more torque, the but is that it did feel a lot more racey a bag of nails if you try and ride slowly around town. I found that I was just thrashing it all the time because the harder you pushed the better it felt. I've found all aluminium clutches to be far quieter than the steel version which is no bad thing, if it's going to make noise the least it can do is make you go faster. I did start with carbs but I wasn't impressed, those long inlets you just know that was a bad idea, and don't get me started on icing up carbs. I happen to have a 2001 wiring loom for an ie. and a Powercommander too. Going injection was probably the best mod I made to my 94 M900, you'll have to put a ding in the frame cross brace above the rear inlet, and put a fuel pump in the tank etc, but hey are you a man or a mouse? Bitza

[slob]

Camshafts *should* fit, *I think* the change came with 1000DS in ‘03.
IE returned to the larger size valves of the earlier 900, I’m not sure about valve/piston clearances as the IE pistons came from a different manufacturer, although compression ratio was the same.

(timings @1mm lift)
carb 900 to’96
In 20°btdc-60°atdc
Ex 58°bbdc-20°atdc
lift: In 11.6mm, Ex 10.56
900IE ‘01-‘02
In 25°btdc-75°atdc
Ex 66°bbdc-28°atdc
lift: In 11.8mm, Ex 14.4mm

oil pump:
posts #6-9 http://www.ukmonster.co.uk/monster/s...ad.php?t=41047

[Luddite]

I think slob's right about the cams.

I have this page bookmarked from Brad the Bike Boy - note 3 suggests that the cams should fit:

http://www.bikeboy.org/duccamspec.html

"Not all cams are interchangeable.* The 1000 DS (and now 696 and 796) cams are unique, running in the head itself without ball bearings.* The 620/800 cams run in ball bearings like the earlier cams, but have two supporting bearings instead of three, and the location of these is different to the earlier cams.* You could make them fit if you really wanted to.* All others are physically interchangeable."

[slob]

BradTBB lists corrected 900 carbie specs and suggests:
In: 24°btdc-70°atdc - 11.75 mm lift, Ex: 58°bbdc-29°atdc - 10.56 lift
Still shorter duration and less max lift than 900IE cams

[Dukedesmo]

I did similar to several of the listed options, my findings;

1. I fitted ST2 cams which are similar to 900ie cams and they fit fine but my understanding is that you really need short intake manifolds to benefit? (I have FCR 41 but they are split-singles on short intakes).

2. Light flywheel makes it pick up quicker - I like it, down side is that it is more prone to stalling when cold.

3. 944cc, well there's no replacement for displacement but be careful with your choice of piston rings as the wrong ones can cause big problems.

4. I have a larger 'V' shaped oil cooler which can certainly keep it cool, in fact too cool a lot of the time so I've blanked most of the frontal area off which helps when on the move and the size of the rad helps when stationary - I did try 2 coolers initially but didn't like the setup and felt it unnecessary plus, I prefer the top one gone to get more cooling air into the rear cylinder fins.

5. I used a 1000DS oil pump as I wanted greater oil flow, especially to the heads (fitted direct oil lines to the camshaft end caps) and to aid in cooling. The DS pump flows more than an old M900 pump (it looks more 'gas-flowed' inside) but it's not a a straight fit as the drive gear is different (easily solved by swapping gears from the Monster pump) and, more importantly the oil intake port is bigger - so much bigger that it doesn't fit to the engine as it is wider than the feed hole and the 'O' ring so I had to machine a reducing bush into fit the pump body which undoubtedly reduces the flow a little, although it still flows more than my (old) Monster pump did. I don't know if a 999RS pump has similar problems but guess it probably does?

6. Ally clutch - definitely a worthwhile upgrade as it reduces the weight hugely, especially if you also fit a billet ally clutch hub (no cush drives) at the same time (see light flywheel for benefits) and I've not noticed the wear to be much, if any worse than an all steel setup?

7. In a previous life...

8. I had my heads gasflowed by CJS Racing, also fitted an Ignitech ignition system which is programmable (useful for power increasing mods) along with a TPS on the carbs for better syncing of timing etc. and a MADASL spaghetti exhaust which all help pep it up a bit.

[Kato]

1: IE cams will alter the power delivery but won’t give any more power unless you are using FCR’s, if you can find a set ST2 cams are what you need

2: As Slob says in post #3

3: Great but don’t forget to factor in the cost of dyno time to take advantage of the extra cubes, will give you a chunk more low down torque and a few more horses but nothing mindblowing

4:Can be usefull in really hot weather but not really necessary, assume the V- shaped one you have came from a 4valve it has more capacity the old Monster one so just run the one

5: RS oil pump is the same as you are already running the difference is the gearing and gear material RS = steel gear & different ratio, you can change the gears on them all to + or – pressure & flow watch out for the tooth pitch change just means you need to change both gears

6: Looks nicer runs quieter and add’s to the effect of the light flywheel

7:

8: By far without spending fortunes the biggest bang for your buck will be lightweight wheels, it is honestly quite amazing how much less effort it takes to throw the bike around with a set of Carbon Wheels

[Darren69]

I've done the light fly wheel and slipper clutch mod on my S4 and wouldn't go back to the old setup, it's much more responsive so you get better roll on acceleration but you do loose a lot of engine braking so you have to adjust your riding style to suit but once you get the feel of it, it's all good. Like Dukedesmo says though it is more prone to stalling but I've only had problems when the engine is cold. If you let it warm up properly then it's fine and no problem in traffic either. Gear change is also improved by the better clutch and lighter flywheel too.

I would say the oil cooler swap is a good idea but you probably don't need both old and new, just go for the bigger one.

One mod not mentioned is the exhaust and I would suggest you could free up some horsepower by fitting some larger headers with a spaghetti manifold to match your hi-levels. Especially if you are going to do head and cams, but it would benefit even the standard engine. 916 S4 engine gets 10% more power and a lot more torque with the bigger Termi headers.

5 spoke Marchesini style wheels would be a cheaper option than carbon ones and more practical, although they are only about 500g per wheel lighter than the standard 3 spokers but you will probably notice the difference. Look nicer too imho.

[slob]

If you go for a low oil cooler, make sure you put a guard of some sort on it, it’ll be right in the path of stones coming off the front tyre.

[Darren69]

Originally Posted by slob

If you go for a low oil cooler, make sure you put a guard of some sort on it, it’ll be right in the path of stones coming off the front tyre.

Yea, especially since Ducati don't do mudguards!! Those fender extenders look too crap imho.