Ducati Monster Forum

As far as I can tell, it doesn't give any concrete guidelines for when the oil is warm enough to ride. I feel guilty letting it idle in front of my neighbors houses for too long so I want to roll off asap. I use the turn off the fast idle as soon as it will idle steady without it. By then, it's still showing STATUS 2 (1 bar) on the oil temp gauge. Should I wait until it's on 3 or 4? Can I ride off easy and let it warm up on the fly?

Thanks.

PS: of course I started with a search. If it's been discussed, I can't find the right search words. Sorry.

In a typical modern four-cylinder engine, car or bike, the cams press down on a bucket and shim adjustment system. This system usually has a pool of oil surrounding it, so halfway though its first rotation a cam will get a liberal coating of motor oil. With a Ducati there is no oil pool, the Desmo system doesn't allow it (except perhaps in the front cylinder head where the exhaust cam sits). The result is that when the motor sits unused the oil in the lines drains away and depending on the temperature and the vicosity of the oil can take quite a few seconds to get to the rockers and cams; oil delvery remains very restricted until the oil is warm. One solution is to use very thin oil; to get the stuff to the critical areas as fast as possible, but the reason for the thicker oil is to maintain the oil film on the fairly highly stressed big end shells.

Now lets think about this, a typical Japanese DOHC engine will have nice little buckets over the valves; a pool of oil sits in a pocket above the bucket and the cam runs directly in the pool, oil is therefore present from the first second of running.  With a Ducati Quattro Valvole, especially after it has sat around for a while, oil can take up to 90 seconds to arrive. The Ducati oil delivery system has no one way valve so as the bike sits unused the oil retreats slowly to the sump.  When you start the engine the oil has to come all the way back up the long oil lines, it is not going to get there appreciably quicker if you rev it. The cams will not notice any difference if you are sitting 'off load' or are trying to ride it; but you do have some choices that will make life easier for the valve gear.

The first choice is the number of revs the engine suffers while the rockers wait for their oil supply. The engine can tick over at 1200 rpm and bash the rocker surface 900 times in 90 seconds while the oil comes up.  Or you can run it at 4000 rpm; and the rockers will get bashed 3000 times, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to work out that the cam follower is going to prefer the lesser of the two evils. (as an aside when I warm up my 'street' ST4 it always seems to get to about 90 seconds before the flashing 'LO' sign on the digital display is replaced with a temperature reading, I doubt it is a coincidence).

From Sigma Performance - they know a thing or two about Ducs:

Cheers,
Adam

Keep in mind...he mentions waiting for the flashing "LO" to disappear on his ST4...this is measuring coolant temperature. It takes considerably longer for the air cooled bikes to register a temperature, as they are measuring oil temperature.

On my 848 I would wait for a temp...and I usually had one by the time I had my plugs, helmet, and gloves on. On the Multi it is several miles down the road before I get a temp. reading...and that's after a 2-minute or so warm up.

On any bike I have / have had, I wait for a temp to register before I start riding ... No problems yet  [thumbsup]

I let mine warm up while I put my earplugs, helmet, and gloves on...maybe 2 minutes max. Waiting for an oil temp. reading is overkill IMO...and takes forever.