My first Ducati was a 1998 900ss/cr. It was an excellent bike. Tracked well in the corners and had that classic 2v grunt. But when the monster s4 was announced, I headed directly to my dealer and put a deposit down. My infatuation was obvious and any hope in haggling was lost when I stepped in the dealership door. The ss/cr was sold to fund the new purchase and I took delivery that spring. What's kind of funny is that when I was rationalizing the purchase with my wife, she made me promise that I wouldn't make any modifications or spend money on the monster. Ha!

Well in attempting to keep the promise I made to my wife, I debated what to do to get some decent sound out of the bike. So I did some research, tracked down a spare set of cans, and hacked them away. I dug the results and so "ducatipipemod" was born. And fortunately it pulls in enough interest to fund all the mods on this bike so I'm in the clear with the Mrs.!

I really liked how the bike rode so I only made a few changes. Mirrors, some bodywork stuff, and I fabbed up a set of high-pipes. Itching to get the bike to an environment that I could really push it, I signed up for a trackday last September at NHIS. Opening up at the track was a great learning experience, but I did have the misfortune of tossing the bike down the tarmac past turn 1 from a nasty high-side. This is where the story really begins.

I hauled the bike home from the track and after banging my head against the wall, I resolved to tear the bike down and rebuild it. And so began the vicious cycle of "well since I'm doing this, I may as well..." stripping the bike down to the engine took a couple days but was a good experience to demystify the machine. The full rebuild took a bit longer though... Waiting on parts, wrenching here and there, selling unneeded stock bits and ordering more trick goodies wound up dragging the project on to just over a year!

In the end, the bike's quite a bit lighter, handles better, makes a bit more power, and is fairly original in its details I think. There's not much more that I'd like to do to it aside (possibly) a big bore/high-compression piston kit, but I've got a feeling I'll really be testing my wife's patience if I tear the bike apart in our den again!

I'm probably forgetting something but the most significant mods are the following:

• Marvic Piuma Magnesium Rims
• Braketech Full Floating Ductile Iron Front Rotors
• Galfer Wave Rear Rotor
• Ergal Clutch Kit
• Nichols Flywheel
• Powercommander
• Ohlins Rear Shock
• Brembo Radial Master Cylinders
• Cyclecat Frame Sliders
• St4 Rearsets With Linkages Eliminated
• Dual Headlight Kit
• Custom Instrument Panel
• Dp Clip-Ons
• Machined Top Yoke
• Machined Clutch Case Engine Cover
• Bunch O' Powdercoated Bits
• ST4-Derived 45-50-52mm Exhaust - sounds pretty mean

I'm planning on dyno'ing the bike in the spring (to get a custom map built for the PCIII).

December Featured Bike
Strati's Monster

Previous Featured Monsters:
November - none
October
September
August
July
June
May
Aprill
March
Feb