Ducati Monster Forum

Just picked up my 2000 monster 750 last month and am loving it, but would love to throw a few hundred bucks more into it to get some more speed and handling, but I'm not willing to buy a $1000 forks like some of you guys are. What's the best cost to improvement ratio?

I already have:

• ohlins shock
• raised rear end doing the ducati suite mod
• open air box with k&n high flow filter
• remus exhaust

I've looked into and am considering:

• 14t front sprocket
• Lightened flywheel
• front fork springs from traxxion and oil
• new ignition coils from ca cycleworks

Not willing to spend more than 200$ on any one item or put on rear sets (frequent passenger).

Would taking off the exhaust help compensate for the decreased high end from the 14t front sprocket?

Thats a good list of upgrades.

Gearing change is a great mod.
Be wary of a 14 T sprocket with raised rear ride height so the chain doesnt gall the front swingarm and chain guide. Maybe a larger rear sprocket if your chain is long enough or else wait til its time to change chain and sprockets.

Buying a used flywheel and having it machined down will save money. Some light flywheels may cost more than $200 unless you find used.

Front suspension work to even things up with the excellent Ohlins out back is a great idea.
I run the Kelley coils and they're very good.
I assume you are running the appropriate jet kit for the open airbox/K&N mod. If not a good jet kit for that mod is important.

used GSXR1000

 ;D

the cheapest mod IMHO....is getting your spring and forks set for your weight...while maybe not within your budget per sey per your statement...people ride around on bikes that just aren't set up correctly for them in terms of the suspension overall...a properly set up bike, will instantly( almost) make the bike easier to handle...

beyond that...if you have the 3 spoke Brembo wheels on the bike, perhaps keep your eyes out for a set of lighter wheels....reducing unsprung weight also makes a tremendous difference....

these are both in terms of handling though...in terms of speed...you really aren't going to be able to do much of anything within your budget...going to a 14 tooth on the front will make it quicker off the line and less snatchey at lower speed, but you lose top end...not that a 750 has a lot of top end to begin with...so if you feel you need more speed/top end...then perhaps you need to re-evaluate the machine you have and look for another or come to terms with spending some real money on it....

+1 !
Better than any $ thrown at the motor.

If you are going to do a flywheel, you need a carb'd 3-phase flywheel.   I would suggest contacting Frank at FFR for lightening your stock one - much more cost effective than buying the $300 Nichols for a mildly tuned 750.   Keihin FCR 39's would wake it up, but budget-wise rejetting what you've got for the open airbox is probably a better plan.

Taking off the exhaust won't do diddly-squat but make it uncomfortably loud and audibly 'pop' / backfire on decel.

I like the 14T idea. The coils make it feel "smoother" but won't make it go any faster.

I personally wouldn't do anything engine related. It's just not much of a return on investment, i.e., hp per $$ spent.

Focus on suspension and wheels. But none of those will come at a bargain price.

I was able to score a pair of S2R1k adjustable forks 2 years ago for $300 on ebay. More than what you're willing to spend on any one item, but it makes a big improvement. I know, I have a '99 750.  ;D

At some point I'll purchase a 900 motor and drop that bad boy in there.  [bacon]

And those (900 motors) have come down in price pretty substantially over the years.  The good part about the 900 is that you can get the motor and rig up to work with your existing setup, generally (need different headers because the length to the port is different on the 900 than on the 750, and your carbs will need redid of course) - no complicated wiring or 'lectronics to reconfigure.   Try to pick a 98 or newer so you get the 3-phase charging system, like the one on your bike.   If you get an '00+ M900 motor (or 99 SS900 motor), you'll need to rig up a different ignition (like ignitech) to work off the IE motor's different signal-pickup.

Thanks all for your advice!

How heavy are the stock brembo wheels so I can compare them to lighter ones? Is there any kind of wheels I should be looking for in specific?

In terms of forks, would 996 forks work okay? I was looking at the gsxr fork swap thread but that looks like way too much effort. And how do I go about getting them set correctly for my weight? I'm somewhat mechanically inclined, so doing adjustments on my own isn't an issue.

For the m900 engine, (I was also looking into this) you're saying the only easy years for me to do a full swap are 98 and 99? I've read I also need intake manifolds and headers like you mentioned.

So coils just make the powerband feel more even and smooth but really don't make it feel faster? Maybe not worth my 180$ right now...

14t sounds like a good idea, but I'll most likely need to either remove teeth or get a newer chain.

I'll look into lightening my own flywheel, thanks!

No, you can use an earlier M900 or SS900 motor, only you'll need to make sure you get the regulator/rectifier for its different charging system.   The 98-99 are the most direct "bolt on" versions for your bike, I'd say.    Correct me if I'm wrong, peeps.


996 forks (or 748, 916, 998) are not a direct swap.  You would need to bore/shim your triple clamps to make them fit correctly. The SBK Showa forks are 53mm upper and 53mm lower, your Monster forks are 50mm upper and 54mm lower.  You bore upper and shim lower.   Or you buy proper aftermarket triples.   Either way you are looking at a lot of cash - a good condition set of SBK forks is a couple hundred bucks and you want to make sure they don't need seals, etc. (as that would add to the cost).

If you grab GSXR forks, one way to do it is to grab a set from the litre-bike which (you want to verify) are already 50/54 so they go right in the triples.  You'll want to grab the appropriate axle, front wheel, rotors, fender and brakes so everything plays nicely at the fork bottoms.  It could then be a more "direct" swap, but perhaps no cheaper with the requirement of all those additional parts.

The 996 forks use the same axle (hollow, 25mm) as your 2000 M750, and the brakes should also bolt right up. Likewise, the wheel and rotors work directly, as does your mechanical speedo sensor.

Wheels, I think, are your biggest bang for your buck.  You'll have a 25mm front axle and 17mm rear axle, iirc.  You don't need a 5.5" rear unless you just like a fat tire - the 4.5" wheel is probably plenty of rear meat to hold you on the road when you are on the gas if you have any kind of wrist control.  If you do put a 5.5" wheel on there, don't go nuts with a 180x55 rear tire - that's certainly overkill and needless additional weight. You'll be fine with the 170x60 and it actually makes the bike feel more nimble.   Go with forged aluminum as they are the cheapest of the upgrade wheels and also good for longevity (no concerns about magnesium degradation, etc).   Looking at the prices, a set of Carrozzeria wheels (not the lightest forged aluminum but so much lighter than the OEM silver 3-fat-spokes Brembo wheels you'll be pleased) are brand new for 1800 or less.  New (reputable-manufacturer) magnesium wheels cannot be had for less than $3500 bucks!

A lot of good info here...bookmarked.

I know, for me, the best thing that I can do to save weight is go on a diet. :P

where have you seen aftermarket 4.5"?

special request from several manufacturers.

Michelin pr3s were deffinitly the best improvement I've made to my Duc.

I've a 98 m750. Got an ohlins rear in the shed, yet to fit it. What I did do is put 98 m900 forks on the front, they're adjustable and a direct swap. Should be able to pick up a used pair for under $400. That's less than your $200 per fork :P wheels would be nice but won't make the price cut.

the adjustable forks can really use reworking too if youre getting serious.  the adjustability is taken by many to mean they're a good fork, but they're not that flash.  better than the 40mm marzocchi crap on the 600 and 750, but it's a crap versus satisfactory sort of thing.

What forks does my monster have stock? It definitely has showa's on it right now, but they're silver, not gold in the slightest, and don't have the blue/red top of the superbike forks. And how can you tell they're adjustable? I've seen 97 m900 showas but the tops don't look adjustable.

If your fork tops don't have the flat-screwdriver 'clicker' adjusters pocking through with a larger hex nut top (preload adjustment) protruding through the largest hex fork cap, its non-adjustable.  The nonadjustable ones just have a single hex-nut cap on top, nothing else going on.

Also, offhand... how old are you tires?  You'd be amazed at how much better your bike feels on new rubber...  something you're going to wind up doing anyway but I still do classify this as one of the best bang for your buck handling upgrades albeit a temp one.

on that note, check the profiles of the tires too.  The OEM tire spec with a 120/60 or 120/65 isn't quite as conducive to diving into turns as the later OEM spec 120/70

i don't want to hijack this thread, but i am trying to decide myself whether to rework my adjustable shows (99 m900), or do a SBK or GSXR1000 swap. i'm leaning toward the gixxers, because they look so frisking sweet [drool]

is that wrong of me? suzuki on ducati? [popcorn]

by the way -- do you really need all that stuff for the GSXR fork swap? i can't use my own wheels? that would suck [bang] the price will then approach a full ohlins setup. and do you really increase the handling that much?

seems consensus on the monster is, the most improvement comes from the rear...

I had my stock nonadjustable Showa forks resprung/revavlved, a big improvement. Some would argue that the old nonadjustable Showa is a better starting point for a revalve than the old adjustable Showa.
Also recently fitted a budget Penske shock and it works great.

On my '99 M900 - the first one I really got to tinkering with, it came with 3-way adjustable showas from the factory.  It was horribly undersprung for a large american mammal like myself.  The adjustments to compression/rebound didn't seem to have any noticeable effect whatsoever.    So I resprung, replaced fork oil with fresh stuff, and revalved it with the gold-valve kit from RaceTech (springs and oil also from racetech).


Went from feeling like rocks to feeling wooden. An improvement, but adjustments still didn't do all that much (not like "they made subtle, fine-grain changes" - i mean, "from all the way out to all the way in, very little difference"). 


saved up for correct bored triples (53/53) for bolting up some superbike forks (better starting platform).  I went with IMA Special Parts triples because I could get them bored properly for the forks, rather than having to track down a machine shop to bore my top triple and acquire shims to shim the too-large lower triple.  The billet triples came the right size, but were also beefy billet triples, and black anodized like I wanted. 

I think that was a better fork than I ever had to begin with using the '99 Monster adj. forks. But the superbikes use a larger hollow axle (also used on all 99+ Supersports and 00+ Monsters... but not on the 99 and earlier bikes).  So I had to get a new front axle and new front wheel (upgraded this while I was at it - lightweight front wheel makes a huge difference in handling I learned). 

The forks now have the ohlins valve kit put in there and fresh oil - the OEM SBK fork springs were actually correct for my body weight, so no spring change was necessary (they are much stiffer than the ones on a Monster because of the more forward weight bias on the superbikes - so it was like getting correct springs included).


This was not cheap, all-in.  But I am really happy with the result.


If you find some GSXR 1000 or Yamaha R1 forks, you should be able to get the forks, axle, wheel, rotors, calipers and bolt it all right up.  They are 50/54 as well, and I know for sure that the Yamaha R1 (even the current big-bang motors) use the 205mm fork spacing - same as OEM Ducati.  These would bolt right into your triples, and you could upgrade to their radial brakes and such at the same time.  They have little dainty rotors, probably, but whatever (I think 310's... maybe they are up to 320's now). 


I can't say that the new model japanese oem forks would be better than the oem ducati superbike showa forks, I really haven't done a purposeful comparison of the two "stock parts".  Seems like both are an upgrade over the monster's forks.  I like the Ducati bits because i can get seals and anything else at my local dealer, same place i could get my belts or crush washers or muffler bearings or headlight fluid or regulator-smoke-refills.

Yeah, instead of modifying 90s technology you can upgrade to more current suspension which will often be better in stock form than the old stuff with money thrown at it.
But down here the used parts market is different.

So... i found a set of '04 gsxr 1000 forks that have ohlins R&T internals installed by a suspension tech who rode them like that for about 500 miles [drool] they will come with the calipers, for sure, but i'm not sure about anything else. maybe he has the axle too. but i know he doesn't have the wheel or rotors. does anyone know if i'll be able to use my own wheels and rotors? i have a '99 m900 city edition.

anyone know if i can just get spacers? and if so how or from whom? would really appreciate any help on this! can pay you back in beer [drink]
__________________
New 1999 M900 ;D

since I am guessing you didn't use the search function...

http://www.ducatimonsterforum.org/index.php?topic=37335.0 (http://www.ducatimonsterforum.org/index.php?topic=37335.0)

http://www.ducatimonsterforum.org/index.php?topic=9367.0 (http://www.ducatimonsterforum.org/index.php?topic=9367.0)

http://www.ducatimonsterforum.org/index.php?topic=14080.0 (http://www.ducatimonsterforum.org/index.php?topic=14080.0)

If you need axle spacers made up, a good start is Fast Frank Racing.  Doesn't mean the axle diameter will be right for you though.  Your 99 will have a 20mm, not sure what the 04 GSXR uses, i ain't got one of them.

sweet, thanks -- will find out right away!