This race-spec Ducati 1198R is owned by a local race team from Lincoln; we’ve tuned the engine for them and after their first test session the bike was back with us after an issue (which was down to the ECU).
We fitted our own ECU and we’re happy now – it seems the original had been playing up for quite a while. A run on the Dyno made sure everything was cool…
Anyway, alongside the engine work the team have made quite a few changes this year to the chassis. They asked us – with our experience racing these bikes – if we’d make them a set of yokes (to reduce the fork offset, bringing the front wheel in a bit for stability in a straight line), which we turned out in our engineering shop.
We also lengthened the rear swingarm by bolting in an item from a Streetfighter (with some modification for tyre/exhaust pipe) adding 20mm. Combined with the yokes the change is subtle but elevates the chassis to the next level.
Stock, when pushed these things shake their head and will turn in fast but run wide on the way out. The result now is that the rider can commit 100% and in in his own words “ran out of ambition…!” before the bike did. That’ll do us!
An ECU issue stopped this 1198R – a BSD replacement sorted it!
Crafted out of aircraft-spec aluminium for reduced fork offset, these BSD yokes are a work of brutal simplicity…
20mm extra doesn’t sound like much, but combined with the reduced offset makes a big difference to the handling.
