6) Things start to get out of hand...

I cant remember at what at what point things started to get really out of hand, but it was some time in 2008 when we really bonded. My mates who rode it could never figure out how I managed to make the bike go so fast. That Summer I enjoyed many rapid ride around the hill roads of Banks Peninsula so my riding skills were becoming honed.

To be honest the thing went better than any old Supersport had a right to. Its' (unfiltered) FCR carbs sucked so hard that you could feel the change in air pressure in your ears when you wrapped on the throttle, let alone hear the deafening noise of air, bugs and low clouds being forcibly ingested into its 944 cee cees of high compression hammer-hell. The front came up at 4,000rpm in 2nd off the gas, which never ceased to impress me and the cancer of unreliability seemed almost in check.

It had carbon everything, I had bought an Ohlins shock from local Ducati Wrecker Ducatispares, the bike had a Romeo Y Julieta Churchill  aluminium Cigar case (from a cigar that I had personally smoked) for a battery overflow container.  

It was, in short, as cool as hell!

However, cool is a relative term, so when I discovered that the swingarm was made of common steel, not the aluminium found on later bikes, I went on the hunt for the best 2v Ducati Swingarm that I could find. Which at the time was from a 1000SS DS. 

My quest led me to the door of Muzza Bikes, a shop that specialised in Motorcycle Smash Repairs, and all things Ducati. Murray, the owner did indeed have a swingarm, but also the entire rear assembly, wheel, brake, etc that went with it. At this time I was still suffering from a Purple single pot rear caliper that looked like it had come off someone's Grandad's R-Series BMW. So I bought the lot.

Revised exhaust system.

When I trial fitted the later model swingarm, I discovered, to my horror, that the Spaghetti exhaust system didn't go in the smaller gap for the rear cylinder down-pipe. It would need some modification to fit.

More research led me to a bloke by the name of Corey, an exhaust welding guru who had also done some work on the Britten. Corey crafted the necessary modification to my system, made the balance pipes more substantial and added some Lambda probe fittings, so I could get meaningful results on a dyno. Taking it to a local shop revealed 82.4rwhp, and oodles of torque. 

After fitment of the swingarm and new (underslung) rear brake caliper, the bike looked amazing, apart from the miss-matched wheels. Hmmmm.... Clearly, something would have to be done...