Project Ducati Hypermotard Part 2

Project Ducati Hypermotard Part 2

By Jeff Naeyaert

To read part one click here!

When we last left off, we had installed a few Ducati Performance parts on Project Hypermotard, an exhaust system and some carbon bits which gave us some more power and shed some weight. Project Hypermotard is a commuter bike and a short road trip machine; we are using Ducati performance parts because we want to retain our all inclusive 2 year factory warranty.  As we explained in our last installment, Ducati, like Toyota's TRD, Mazda's Mazdaspeed and Nissan's Nismo, has its own high performance division: Ducati Performance. Ducati Performance parts are really cool and do not affect the factory warranty.  Another advantage to using factory parts is that you can finance the parts at the time of purchase.

Due to the complexity of the Desmo valve train, we decided to stick with the factory engineered cams.  The Ducati Performance cam on the right has visibly more radical lobes with more overlap, lift and duration than the stock part on the left.

The Hypermotard's air cooled 1100cc L twin was plenty torquey, especially with the pipe and ECU mods we last installed but we wanted a little more breathing room on top to help keep up with superbikes.  In stock trim our bike pumped out 78 whp and 65 lb ft of torque on a Dynojet wheel dyno.  If this was a Superbike, that would be considered pretty weak but of course on the Hypermotard, the air cooled engine's simplicity, broad powerband and light weight were valued over sheer power.  Performance wise, the Hypermotard being much lighter than your average sports bike still has sparkling performance, at least at lower speeds.

Due to tight packaging we have often found bikes to be harder to work on than cars!  We also didn't feel like learning the particulars of how to adjust a desmo valvetrain so we had the pros at AMS handle the install.  Look at the extent that our bike had to be disassembled to change the cams!

To help out in the power department, we had AMS Performance once again help us with the mechanical aspects by installing a set of Ducati Performance cams.  Since the Engine uses Ducati's famous Desmodromic valve control system where one cam lobe opens the valves and another closes them, cam design is very difficult, beyond what the aftermarket can typically come up with.  Due to the complexity of the valvetrain we made the easy decision to stick with factory engineered parts.

The whole rear of the bike had to literally be removed to access the rear cylinder head to install the cam.

You can see the Desmodromic cam lobes and rocker clearly in this picture.  These close the valves to assure no valve float.  Seems pretty complicated!