Project Ducati Superbike 998 Part 2: Suspension and Chassis Geometry
Front suspension completely bottomed to verify clearances.

The stock brake reservoir wouldn’t fit on the aftermarket master cylinder in any reasonable fashion. STG to the rescue with a Brembo aftermarket reservoir. Not having a proper bracket, I resorted to drilling and tapping the top triple. This is common practice in the Ducati 916 world, but it still hurt. A little lock wire for safety’s sake and the reservoir is mounted. Don’t use this as a template on how to lock wire – it ain’t pretty.

Going to bleed the clutch I found what I was expecting. I suspect this is 15-year-old fluid as it was grossly black and filled with debris. Flushed with Motul 5.1 and ready for use again.

New Brembo reservoir vs 15-year-old Brembo reservoir

 

Bolted and lock wired to the upper triple clamp.

6 comments

  1. Be careful substituting in stainless steel bolts in the place of carbon steel bolts. Austenitic stainless steels like 18-8/304 are typically very low strength with the amount of work hardening that goes into making a bolt. Additionally, the different methods of making a bolt, and how much the threads are rolled drastically affect the final tensile strength of the bolt, to the point that they typically aren’t even rated for tensile strength or hardness.

    Most low carbon bolts are going to have a tensile strength in the 115-145 ksi range, while most commercial CRES bolts will be in the ~70-85 ksi range.

  2. Great comment Def. McMasterCarr sells multiple types of stainless fasteners. For clarification, I used the ‘High Strength Stainless Steel Socket Head Screws’ specifically because they have a higher tensile strength of 110 ksi vs the regular stainless’s 70 ksi.

    I think either would work though; titanium bolts are readily available as replacements and have less tensile strength than either type of steel.

  3. A good point to make Rob, it might be good to note this in the article because I was thinking the same thing as Def.

      1. Had the exact same thought regarding 300 series stainless fasteners. Nice find with the high strength options. That being said, there are many titanium fasteners that are 110+ ksi. The ones on mcmaster that quote 50 ksi are probably grade 2 titanium for corrosion resistance. Grade 5 is much stronger and that’s what is more typical for performance oriented fasteners (pro-bolt, allied titanium, etc.)

        1. You’re right. Pro bolt lists grade 5 for their titanium fasteners with a ‘greater than 120ksi’ tensile strength. They also list shear modulus, ductility, Rockwell hardens etc. Really quite impressive that they have all of this information for the customer.

          They also DLC coat the fasteners for corrosion resistance. Shame their too expensive typically for a cheap ass like myself.

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