Not Your Neig Bor's 916
Not your neig bor's 916
Super Standards
GO TO DUCATI ISLAND AT LAGUNA SECA (DURing the Superbike races) and you'll See a thousand Ducatis. They'll all be red and the only differences will be how much money has been spent on carbon-fiber. That isn't what we had in mind. This Ducati is from Mule Island."
Speaking is Richard Pollock, whose day job is missile mechanic at Lockheed-Martin’s skunkworks in San Diego, but whose real job is Mule Motorcycles (858/679-9540), builder of motorcycles themed in what he calls “I Iigh Function” that is, production bikes revised to do more with less.
One of Mule’s happy customers is Steve Sites, for whom Pollock built a street-track Harley-Davidson. Sites liked the Harley, but one day found a crashed 1994 Ducati 916. It had been damaged but not seriously, and the price was right.
Sites called Pollock and asked, could you do something different with a 916?
No problem.
Pollock retained the engine, along with the
fuel injection and the electronic engine-management system.
He kept the frame, the 4.5-gallon fuel tank and the tailsection, especially useful
because the space behind the seat pad houses the brain, the circuitry and so forth for the electronics. He also kept the Showa fork and Öhlins rear shock.
The 916’s fairing, already scuffed, was discarded, and the twin headlights replaced with the huge single beam from Ducati’s own naked bike, the Monster. The sidepanels went, mostly because it’s Pollock’s view that a motorcycle is a machine and its mechanical parts are to be seen and admired.
One radical change was a new swingarm, with two sides, instead of the stock single-sided part. The monoarm is useful in racing, makes for easy tire changes, but requires a heavier rear-hub assembly. So, Sal Peluso welded up a conventional swingarm to fit the stock frame, pivot and shock, mated to a Kosman rear hub and alloy quick-change sprocket. The new hub carries an Akront rim, laced with stainless-steel spokes. Rim width is 5.5 inches, and the rear tire is a Michelin radial, a roadracing full wet, 17-inch.
Perhaps the most intricate and least visible modification was in the front. Wire wheels were part of the requirement, but the stock cast wheel serves as its own hub. Pollard’s missile-factory skills came in handy here. A front hub was cut from aluminum billet, sized inside to carry Ducati wheel bearings and axle; outside to be drilled and fitted with the spokes for the Akront rim, 3.5 inches wide.
And then came the brakes. They are from Wilwood, a racing company all but unknown in motorcycle circles but standard equipment in stockcars and single-seaters. Nothing was wrong with the stock brakes, Pollock says, but the Wilwoods are lighter and at least as effective.
One of the project’s goals was to make the machine,
as we all say now, user-friendly. The handlebar is from Ron Wood Racing, in stainless-steel and flat-track bend, chosen to let the rider sit with less cafe crouch-ask any stock 916 owner, the crouch gets you after an hour or two.
Dry weight for a stock 916 is 447 pounds. Mule’s version tipped the certified CW scales at 394 pounds, with oil but no fuel, so the project has pared off at least 53 pounds of.. .well, can’t say fat, not with a Ducati, but weight that wasn’t needed.
Sportbike gone naked
The non-red paint began, in a manner of speaking, with the frame. When the 916 had bodywork, the frame wasn’t seen and was painted in sort of a blah metallic. That wouldn’t do here. The frame was powdercoated black and Uptown Cycle Design, a San Diego shop, came up with the silver, orange-red and black paint scheme. All the logos and labels are stock Ducati and perhaps as a concession to convention, that one-off front hub is striped in Italy’s national
colors of red, green and white.
Virtually every part, down to the nuts and bolts, was evaluated and if there was a higher standard, the bolt, nut, hose or clamp was replaced. With the fairing and sidepanels removed and the machine in full view, Pollock says, it can’t look cheap.
Which it’s not. Pollock says the bill is right at $15,000.
Owner Sites says it’s worth it.
Allan Girdler
