Ducati comes up with brilliant new frame design by thinking outside the box!

[Monkeypants]

According to a review in Motorcycle-USA magazine, the new Ducati Panagale Superbike has "broken away" From traditional frame design by doing somethingreferred to as "Using the engine as a stressed member"
What will those engineers at Ducati come up with next?

Glen

 

[1660bob]

Pal of mine has bought a Paniggly, and garaged it as a collectors piece. I had a good look at it and I have to say, er,um, totally impractical.... For 20 grand ....... the exhaust from the rear cylinder curls through 180 deg to return it to the underslung silencer box, and thus displaces the rear shock to one side of the swingarm-a howling afterthought.The shock itself is a Ohlins unit with some sort of electrical control and has two plug in connectors with wires emerging vertically right at the side of the minimalist seat where they will stick right into the back of your thigh, at least until your first spirited ride, where said thigh will rip them off anyway. I think a case of form over function gone mad-but perhaps that`s the point????

Bob.

 

[bmetcalf]

The exhaust doesn't seem to be hurting the HP much. A local tuner dynoed and tuned the 14 maps and got 195 HP at the rear wheel. Not bad for 1198cc.

 

[roy the mechanic]

195 hp sounds interesting, except most owners- who will have big pockets+little d-cks will never really find out how fast it can go!

 

[bmetcalf]

The more I think about it, the more it might have been tuning services salesmanship. The US magazine Motorcyclist has a 158 RWHP figure in the new issue. An exhaust and tuning good for another 40 HP? That is 132 hp/l to 163hp/l, a 23% gain on an already highly tuned engine.

 

[johnmead]

No, Bruce the 158 to 195 RWHP is correct. Ducati had to tune the engine ECU and exhaust down to meet emission standards. Just changing to a Termignoni gets you an additional 30 RWHP and a PowerCommander gets the rest.

All of the magazine tests are with the stock setup so that is why you see low numbers.

John Mead

 

[bmetcalf]

Holy Moley! Can I get a Termi for my Rapide and where do I hook up this Power Commander?