Waste of money .....

[stopintime]

Wasn’t the best design, that one…

They continued it up to at least the Panigale 1199R, maybe still do.....  stubborn make the beast with two backsers.

[MonsterHPD]

Hello, all.

There has been a few dyno sessions recently. Main aim was to check progress (or otherwise) on the track bike, but before tht, and in order to check that the dyno was reasonably consistent, we re-tested my m800, which has not been changed atall since the last dyno check last year.

Additionally, a totally stock (apart from no snorchels on the air box and mapped accordingly) but freshly service 900SSie with cams timed for an inlet CL of 109° was dynoed, so this gave a nice comparison for my m800.

First torque:

M800 torque graph by torbjörn bergström, on Flickr

Not surprisingly, the 900 has much more midrange torque. Also not so suprisingly, the ST2-cammed 800 has considerably less midrange torque than the stock-cammed version.

The resulting power graph:

M800 power graph by torbjörn bergström, on Flickr

As you may expect, the 800 now thrives on revs, and it is (in my opinion) much more fun to ride; there´s now a noticeable step in the power delivery at about 6k rpm, and it does not hit the proverbial brick wall beyond the power peak. Of course, if I were to ride a lot 2-up or with much luggage, it may not have been so nice.

It´s also becoming clear that is is not so easy to really increase the area under the curve, a lot of what is achieved is that the torque gets moved around to where you (may) want it ...
But, as a practically no-cost operation, I´m pretty happy with the result.


As a dyno test, it gave satisfactory result, the runs from last yer and this year are nearly identical.

I will also update the track bike thread, but there the results were interesting at best, slightly depressing in reality, bu I will come back to that later.       



 


       

[koko64]

Thanks for the update.
 

[koko64]

Any more dyno testing completed? Would like to see the results and any plans for winter projects.
Your 800 makes more power than a 900ie so the work put into the motor was effective. Since the motors have similar cams it proves the engine mods and tuning were effective even though the motor has less capacity. Your 800 has more stock compression, but that porting must have worked. Pretty cool.

Have you considered a big bore kit and higher compression to improve the lower range torque? Or just leave it?

[MonsterHPD]

Have you considered a big bore kit and higher compression to improve the lower range torque? Or just leave it?

Of course I have   

I won´t do any big bore, but I might consider hi-comp pistons. Due to our 95-octane fuel now beein 10% ethanol now, I always use the 98-octane, which is ( I think) 5%, lower at any rate, I might just as well drop in a set of hi-comps. For the time beeing, I´ll leave the bike as is, and cross my fingers it will stay as reliable as it has been so far. I know where a hi-comp project would lead .... Carillo, balanced crank, you know the proces :-)

Next on the project will be a cylinder head flow bench, I need to know what I´m doing when doing porting jobs.

 

[greenmonster]

.I always use the 98-octane, which is ( I think) 5%,

Yup, 5%, look at the petrol hose handle.

[MonsterHPD]

Up here, the riding season is more or less over, the track riding season for sure, so it´s off to the garage again. As it turned out, the riding season for the 800 ended a few weeks earlier than planned, but more on that later.

Modification-wise, not too much has happened since I did the tuning a few years back, but last winter I decided to do a suspension experiment that´s been on the book for a few years; I had this ST4S fork, and the GSXR 12 mm cartridge-rod cartridge with midvalve shimstack and top-out spring. Just a matter of matching it all ….
I was not too keen on the GSXR rebound piston, partly because it´s almost impossible to assemble the midvalve shimstack on it, so I decided to use standard Showa rebound pistons, and for the compression side I decided to use a set of Racetech Gold Valves I had lying around. Unfortunately, I all but forgot to make any photos, but in parallell I did an Andreani cartridge installation in an Aprilia fork in the same way, so I´ll use some pictures from that job.

I´ve had some good advice from my professional suspension friends, who recommended I use a mid-valve with a certain amount of “float", meaning that the clamp shim of the mid-valve shimstack is not actually clamped, it´s all held down with the check valve spring and allowed to lift slightly from the piston face before the actual shimstack starts to work. The amount of float should be in the region of 0.15 to 0.40 mm or so.
After some deliberation, I decided the easiest way to limit float was with a correct-thickness stop shim under the hat washer. It took quite a lot of trying, but with the flat-grinder in my friends garage I finally arrived at as close as I could get to 0.15 mm of float; I decided to start at the lower end since it would be easy to increase by grinding a few 1/100 mm off the stop shim. 
Since the midvalve will contribute to compression damping, I used my Restackor SW to find a softer variant of the compression shimstack, and for the midvalve I basically used the GSXR set-up which should be pretty safe from a cavitation point of view, especially with the added float. Basically, an educated guess at best 😊

2021-12-23 10.36.31 by torbjörn bergström, on Flickr

I was very pleasantly surprised at how well it turned out. It´s the first time I´ve tried a midvalve setup, and it´s by far the most comfortable fork I´ve had on any bike so far, it´s better than the Öhlins R&T43 previously on the bike, so that fork will be the next up for a midvalve installation.
I was then also pleasantly surprised when taking the bike to the track, it´s very well controlled, and try as I might, I´ve not been able to bottom it out. I´ve dialled in a couple clicks of comp damping (like 12 clicks out of 17) and left it at that, road or track.   
 
For various reasons, the m800 became my main, and finally only bike this summer, road and track. It even had to make do for the yearly club championship, doing well enough in the first race, but unfortunately the 2nd race was rained out, me not having time to swap the slick front to the ordinary S22.

286424998_5723671777661311_7213917719655915318_n by torbjörn bergström, on Flickr

Anyway, on a track day in early August I noticed the motor had started using oil, as well as leaving an oil scent trail. Since I don´t like more or less sudden changes of this kind, I parked the bike until I got home.
Back home, both cranking pressure and leak-down values had gone pretty markedly in the wrong direction on the vertical cylinder since I tested them not too far back earlier this summer, as well as the values from before the season started. So the motor will come apart, and depending on what I find, and what budget I can afford, maybe now some proper hi-comp pistons will come. That would also allow for some port and combustion chamber mods without loosing compression, this time documented on my flow test bench. Lots to learn 😊 

2022-09-23 09.32.15 by torbjörn bergström, on Flickr

[koko64]

Sorry about your motor. It's an opportunity now I guess. That cam could work well with higher compression.

The dark art of suspension work is fascinating. So the mid valve gives compliance without losing race track level control? So no more compromise with control vs comfort?

[MonsterHPD]

Sorry about your motor. It's an opportunity now I guess. That cam could work well with higher compression.

The dark art of suspension work is fascinating. So the mid valve gives compliance without losing race track level control? So no more compromise with control vs comfort?

As far as I´m concerned, yes. However, I only have this one example to judge from so far.
The theory with the midvalve is that it adds high-speed damping, and the floats limits the low-speed damping damping contribution of the midvalve. I would like to test this fork on a suspension dyno to better know whats going on ....  

[MonsterHPD]

 Well, finally I did waste some money on the m800: +1 mm inlet valves from Kämna, and a set of 796 hi-comp pistons from Pistal.
The pistons were bought on a bit of a chance, since I could not find any dedicated m800 hi-comp pistons. As it turned out, it would be a lot of work, not least of my own making.
Anyway, I´ve spent a lot of time on the flow bench this winter season, as I have a lot to learn and even after all the hours spent there now, I´ve obviously just started scratching the surface. I´ve done quite a lot of testing, grinding and epoxying on a M1000DS head, and on an ST2 head. After that, I´ve ported a set of m695 heads for my buddys TT1/2 750 cc classic racer, and the heads for my m800. As I half knew the valves, porting and combustion chambers are the same on all 695 (apart from 7 mm valve stems), 800s, 903s and 944 motors, but the actual execution are a bit different.

20230207_195002 by torbjörn bergström, on Flickr

I don´t remember what the m800 heads were like when standard (“blind” ported a couple of year ago), but the ST2 heads have some basic factory machining in the ports, whereas the 695 heads appear to be as-cast.

20221129_094817 by torbjörn bergström, on Flickr

As such, the 695 are (in my view) pretty OK from a surface finish point of view, but pretty awful from a “macro-finish” point of view: uneven and wavy.     
In general, I think these motors have poor ports, with the turn down towards the valve being far too abrupt, and the port very “low” as it approaches this area.
I warned my buddy about me porting the 695 heads, since I basically don´t know what I´m doing, but having seen the ports, I think it would be pretty difficult do make them worse  … 
Anyway, having done a lot of testing, I think I´ve found a routine to assure my measurements are repeatable, and by doing modifications in very small steps, with testing after each step, I at least managed some progress (as measured on the flow bench, nota bene, the dyno will tell eventually …), and I´ve avoided drastic changes that might look good flow-wise, but which are bad acc to people with lots of experience, like opening up the throat diameter, or the port diameter in general.
The Duc ports also appear to be somewhat strangled in the valve guide area, so a lot of effort went into slightly widening and cleaning up the ports I this area, making the floor turn as smooth as possible, and cleaning up the transition port to valve seat insert area. On the 695, a substantial improvement in flow came from just evening out the port walls all the way from the flange onwards, without increasing diameter substantially.

On the m800 I also had the +1m inlet installed, and I was surprised at how big an improvement that seemingly small change made to the flow, especially at low-to-mid lift.


M800V_04_05 by torbjörn bergström, on Flickr

In the graph, I have used the stock ST2 head as 100% at all lifts, and related all the others to that baseline.

2V relative flow comparison by torbjörn bergström, on Flickr

The pistons would have fitted as they came, but I was not completely happy with the slightly big squish, and the resulting compression ratio above 12:1 was a bit much for my taste.
Previously, I´ve used a sleeve to hold the piston in the lathe for machining, but it´s a pretty bad solutions since it is very difficult to get the piston to run true. I was adviced by a member on the german forum to use the machined “band” at the bottom of the piston instead. I feel a bit unhappy for not coming up with this myself, after all I´ve worked several years with pistons … too many years ago, maybe.
With this adaptor, it also became possible to machine the inlet valve pockets slightly.
Initially, I planned to use a 0.2 mm base gasket, an machine the piston top as required for a 0.9 or so mm squish height, and a compression ratio of about 11.5:1. In the event, I was a little too frivolous when machining the valve pockets, and had to take the base gaskets away completely to th to the right(ish)  CR. No problem, really, but I felt very nervous about taking away too much again, with no reasonable solution.

2023-03-04 16.57.51 by torbjörn bergström, on Flickr

2023-03-05 17.35.26 by torbjörn bergström, on Flickr

It also became very obvious how difficult it is to measure compression ratio correctly and repeatably, and after taking 0.15 mm off the top of the pistons, I´ve measured them 10 to 15 times each, with procedure improvement attempts. In the end, the results were almost acceptably as far as repeatability goes.

2023-02-21 09.47.57 by torbjörn bergström, on FlickrBild byrett

The hor cylinder is (as far as I can establish) 11.64 (mean from 7 measurements) with 11.59/11.71 as low/high, and 11.54 (from 5 measurements) with 11.52/11.57 as low/high for the ver cylinder. I have not found a solution why one was easier to measure than the other ….

2023-03-22 15.27.06 by torbjörn bergström, on Flickr

I hope this will bring some performance gains, and a motor that will run nicely on road and track. I hope to be able to put the bike on the same dyno as previously, in order to get an easy comparison. 
So far, I can just cross my fingers 😊           

[koko64]

Looking forward to the dyno results. 

[MonsterHPD]

Hi,
time flies, bike runs but no dyno results as of yet, more info to follow sometime soon(ish). Meanwhile, I suppose it really was time to re-pack the silencer ...

2023-07-22 11.49.26 by torbjörn bergström, on Flickr

[koko64]

 

[MonsterHPD]

As every year, summer is done before you know what happened  ... but having slept a night on the status described, I decided that was not good enough; I had to find more reliable and repeatable measurement methods, and start all over, as far as possible.

The most obvious point to start was to make a plexiglass plate that fits in the cylinder recess in the cylinder head, eliminating the need to calculate and correct for the “recess volume” in the head.

2023-03-26 17.17.49 by torbjörn bergström, on Flickr

I also did some experimentation with different measurement fluids (the pic shows some light oil), but in the end I came back to the “camping stove spirit”, don´t know what that might be called in English. It is also difficult to get all the air bubbles out, since they tend to stay attached to any edges. Surface tension also makes filling the narrowest parts of the squish area difficult, but that´s as good as I can get it, I believe. With the help of the tripod tablet and some patience, I think I managed to get as much air out as possible, and subsequent measurements indicated that repeatability had improved substantially.  
Next problem as to accurately measure piston top volume. In order to eliminate various height measurements when using the motor cylinder, I turned a measurement proper diameter cylinder with a small ridge to fix the piston positively in position. With this cylinder, the above mentioned plexiglass plate, and a bottom plate for the cylinder, I could measure the cylinder volume with and without piston, using just the burette, no height measurements and resulting calculations.  

2023-03-29 16.02.22 by torbjörn bergström, on Flickr

Finally, previously I had used a 50 ml burette, necessitating a re-fill since all measurements  are more than 50 ml. To eliminate this, I ordered a 100 ml burette, allowing measurements on one fill. The negative with this is that its only marked every 2 ml, making readings slightly less accurate, but in the end the results are more accurate.      
 
Having done all the measurements anew, I had to juggle base gasket thickness, remaining piston roof thickness, ending up with a 0.25 mm base gasket, made from brass sheet:

2023-02-24 10.44.57 by torbjörn bergström, on Flickr

The measurements ended up as follows (last digit left just for reference, I use them as an indication only):

Combustion chamber horisontal: 52.22 ml (mean from 6 measurements), min 52.0, max 52.5.
Combustion chamber vertical: 52.7 ml  (mean from 6 measurements), min 52.6, max 53.0.
Mesurement cylinder (empty): 84.54 ml, 0.4 ml difference min-max.
Piston top volume hor: 21.92 ml, (mean from 4 measurements), 0.1 ml difference min-max.  
Piston top volume ver: 22.35, (mean from 4 measurements), 0.0 difference.
 
CR horizontal: 12.04:1
CR vertical: 12.02:1
 
Cylinder base gasket 0.25 mm, Squish (approx 10 in from cylinder wall) 1.09 bis 1.13 mm measured above the piston pin.
Basically, I think CR is actually close t 12:1 on both, and certainly between 11.9:1 and 12.1:1.
 
While I was at it, I also made a measuremet with the stock piston. They have a squish band machined to give a squish height of 0.9 – 1.0 mm without base gasket; giving a CR of 10.5:1. SO, in my experience, as they come from Ducati, both the 800 and 900 motors come with lower than nominal CR.      
 
By now the time had come to assemble the motor. The 800 motors have an 18 mm piston pin, the Pistals have a 1.5 mm pin circlip which turned out to be virtually impossible to install. Bu buddy (who has stronger and possbily harder thumbs than I …)  managed to get one in on each piston when oing it on the work bench, but on the motor ….. impossible, especially with the rest of the bike in the way, and the reinforcement ridges on the piston blocking access ….
Fortunately, I had watched a video from Mahle motorsport on circlip installation, so I made a tool along the lines of one the showed. It did not work perfectly, but with some juggling, I finally had the circlips where they belong.

20230418_103358 by torbjörn bergström, on Flickr

Now with substantially more compression, I had expected starting to be reluctant, but the motor started almost at the touch of the button ad idling quite nicely. Cranking pressure and leak-down testing indicated all to be OK, more cranking pressure and just a few % leakage on both cylinders. Immediately noticeable were also a distinct piston noise, as expected due to the running clearances of 0.10 to 0.11 mm. Irritating but, but (probably) not really harmful.

The first road trips , and first few track days, were spent doing road tune on the Microtec ECU, and as indicated by the running characteristics, and spark plug appearance, the mapping now seems to be OK. As for power, it´s still not a power monster after all it´s just a Monster 800,  but judging from feel and GPS tracking on track some improvement has been made.
On the uphill “drag strip” front straight of the Mantorp track here in Sweden, the max GPS speed has improved from 205 kmh last year to 209 kmh this year. May not sound much, but there´s also a difference in how this speed is achieved, and it now makes sense to use 6th gear where earlier I would not get out of 5th gear.
Originally, it was my intention to strip and refurbish the whole motor last winter, but since I have never found anything on the sump plug of filter screen, and while I got stuck on the flow bench, I di not do that. However, when changing oil after about 1000 km of mostly track riding, I found some shiny, magnetic flakes on the sump plug. Changing oil again some 1000 km later, I found a lot more:

2023-07-13 15.39.35 by torbjörn bergström, on Flickr

I sent the pic to Brad Black, figuring he´s seen anything there is to be seen on a sump plug; his verdict was main bearings of starter clutch. I also discussed this with a duc club member who´s running a small Duc workshop in Norway, who agreed but also noted that main bearings are more likely, since the starter clutch has a much bigger “magnetic plug” much closer ….. this sounded plausible to me, so I decided to park the bike for the season, unfortunately withyout a dyno run.. Other projects will decide if it will be up and running for next summer!      

[koko64]

Sorry the bearings gave up. Your mate makes a good point about the "giant sump plug magnet'. But maybe change the starter bearing and examine it first.

You really found some great solutions with the tools you produce. Impressive. That is a skill I envy.

It's great to see you develop your porting skill and testing procedures.  I'll be seeking your advice soon.

12:1 is on the high side and I wonder if there could be any power gains and increased safety margin with some ignition adjustments. The hotter cams at least bleed off some cranking pressure.

Impressive work as always. Thanks for sharing.