BRITDUC

The 1997 Ducati 916SPS is a unicorn 04/2024

Every bike has a story...

As some might know, the 916SPS was the first 916 with an 996 motor and was homogenized for the SBK race series of the day. Ducati sold most of these bikes to race teams but few were sold to private entities, this bike was one of said few. When I was getting into Ducati's there was a fellow in my town that was racing Ducati's at LRRS in NH (the series I later ran in) and he would have his bike serviced at a friends shop which I would frequent. On a few occasions I would see his 1996 916 and later his 1998 916SPS and would essentially sit and stare at the bike.

Much like the 851Special, this gent became a friend and the bike later came to my shop for a possible rebuild that I never had the time to do. Over the years I figured this fellow had these bikes still stashed somewhere and that old itch came back and would not leave me alone. Much of this was that it was fun to build the 851special because it was owned by a friend, this bike carried that same story and they both were in my shop together 15 years before but both were neglected by me as my priorities changed.

One day I was at my Mother's home and was chatting with another old friend who was there looking over some house project's he had been hired to tackle. In passing I asked if he had any new projects, knowing this gent is always playing with old cars and bikes and he said: "nto much really, I do have a few old Ducati's I am playing with". I looked at him and told him whos they were and what they were and he was struck by my connecting the dots. He had bartered contracting work with the original owner (my old friend) for the bikes toward contracting work. After a few minutes of laughing, I told him he should sell me the SPS, because no one else in their right mind would ever want it.

Like the 851, a year passed of me pestering him on selling me the SPS and finally he gave in, knowing I was the only dumbass in the world that would want such a neglected old racebike. I paid him more than the bike was worth in parts and we moved it over to my shop, where once in private I said: "what the hell is wrong with me"

Here are the 916s when I first went to see them:

This pic makes these bikes look a LOT better than they were. Once home, My son Ledger didn't waste a second to hop on her and give a big smile, at least someone was happy!!

Specifications

Frame and subframe: 2001 996 frame, 1998 SPS mono subframe, Monster S4R swingarm
Engine: Cases 916SPS, close ratio trans, Ti Rods, lightened crank, Jugs 996, Heads 996 with 916SPS cams
Tank: 2002 998
Front suspension: Ducati 1098 Ohlins 100MM radial mount.  OEM Ducati 996 Ohlins triples
Rear Suspension: Ducati 999 Ohlins 
Front Brakes: Brembo Radial master / Ducati 1098 monoblock calipers / 749/999 15MM Brembo Full floating.
Steering Damper: Ducati 916 Ohlins 
Rear Brakes: Ducati 999 Master / Ducati 999 rear caliper
Clutch: Brembo Radial master / Ducati 996 Slave / Ducati Performance 6 spring Slipper 
Wheels: Ducati HyperM Marchesini forged wheels
Exhaust: Ducati 1098 Arrow Aluminum slipons, custom headers
Tail: 916 mono
Nose and side fairings: OEM 916/996

Colors

Body: Porsche Albert Blue
Number plates: RAL 1003 (Prismatic Powders)(matching rocker and link powder)
Rocker / Link: RAL 1003 (Prismatic Powders)
Frame: Passion Pink (Prismatic Powders)
Wheels: Skiers Blue (Prismatic Powders)

The first thing you do is getting it running!

After replacing the tank on the bike, including a new pump / filter unit, this bike started right up (it helped that it was stored for 30 years with race gas!). Once she got upto temp (or so I hoped) I started adding water to the cooling system, only to find a freeze plug was blown... For anyone out there that has worked on old stuff, this is a kiss of death. A blown freeze plug means the bike has frozen and likely didn't have antifreeze in it (as a racebike it was not allowed to have antifreeze in it!). To make matters worse, the bike ended up with water in the oil.

After my run tests, I stoped trying to shore up the motor and moved on. Full motor build is on deck....

She sure sounded good for sitting for 30 years!! Nothing is better than 1000CC running through a full 50MM race exhaust.

Teardown

The teardown process is fun, you never know what you are going to find from Ducati on these pre 2000 bikes (as mentioned on the 851Special). You also see all the bad news!! This bike had a lot of it.

A short list of issues found:

• Dented frame from clipons hitting
• Scraped swingarm from racetrack crash
• Failed metal in the tank
• Exhaust mid pipe dented from rearset tabs bending from a race crash.
• As mentioned above, water in the oil so we have a crack in a head, a jug or both!
• A shit ton more.

As you can see, the motor was covered in fuel from the tank failing.

This motor has about 300 miles on it, sure does not look it!!

Here the engine is outside getting degreased, man it was a mess! The tank had race fuel in it, leaking down onto the engine's clearcoat it just turned to a nasty brown muck.

The tail of two frames and a great looking swingarm

As mentioned, this SPS was never titled, only a certificate of origin (that I never got my hands on) which meant I was never going to be able to register it. Because of this, I didnt waste time trying, I sourced a new 2001 996 mono frame. While I was at it, I decided to really shoot myself in the eye and do a monster single sided swingarm conversion like I had on the Docr.

Making the Monster Swingarm work on the SBK frame is a lot of work. First you need to trim the width of the forged pivot of the swingarm.

From there you then need to make a rocker that allows the SBK frame rocker position to align with the monster shock and link mounts. This is no small feat and most who do these conversions don't even try, they just cut and weld the SBK frame to fit, I prefer to keep the frame as it was from the Italians. Here you can see the rocker from the DocR (right) that I then went ahead and copied (left). This rocker runs the same exact spring rates because it uses the same dimensions as the OEM rocker, simple shifting the mounting positions and sandwiching all the elements to make a very strong (better than OEM) setup.

It was fun to remake a piece I designed and made 15 years earlier, I remembered very little of it but was able to pull it off. Remember, I machine parts like an idiot, by hand not by computer but I think this goes well with the Italian way of building these bikes back in the day, a little of this and a little of that works just write.

Suspension rebuild

While in here, I decided to rebuild the rear shock from the DocR and the New 999 ohlins for the BritDuc as well as it's steering damper. Tim@Superbike services does a great job and made quick work of this. I decided to replace the rez barrels to boost the "I Like Gold" aspect of ohlins. Why not..

Here are the rears off the DocR and Britduc, off to SBKSVC

Here are the FG43s for the Britduc and the Rear for the StolenS4, off to SBKSVC

The rears came back in quite good shape. Replaced the Canisters while they were there.

For the fork. Tim went trough the entire setup, even dyno'ing them for performance. Pretty wild to see all the bits!

Initial Mockup

I love mocking up bikes, well really I love and hate it. I end up going down crazy roads and start buying all sorts of shit to try, much of which never works and gets put in a pile!

Here we start seeing the bike with 1098 Ohlins forks, Modern HymperM forged wheels and that new frame.

On the DocR I ran an 848 tail and I was about to do the same with the Britduc but I backed out and stuck with the 916 tail, mainly because the P8 ECU is GIANT and I could not find any where to put it on the 848 tail! I also decided to go with 1098 Arrow Aluminum cans on this bike, which will hang out a tad on the tail but I like this because with the longer swingarm, the wheel will be out further as well.

Its funny, the shock is in the wrong position here, the reservoir needs to be internal, not external as you see in this pic:

Off to powder!

My favorite days are bringing shit to the powder coater and picking it up from them (TAKE MY MONEY).

Hey db, the 80s called, they want their colors back!!

Early Drive Line mockup

It is hard to get one of these bikes rolling without a motor (actually the SBK is easy but with my swingarm it is harder).

Engine parts

Due to the water in the oil thing, I have had to take on a full rebuild of this SPS motor. These motors were special, so it is worth putting the time in but the cost sucks. With water in the oil on these motors, there are only three places to look: Heads, Jugs or waterpump / stator cover. I decided to replace all of them so that I didn't have to chase down one or other other constantly.

Here you can see the original SPS heads (which have more radical SPS cams) and 996 Heads (you can see these with the lighter cam bearing and valve covers) that I sourced. I acutually bought another set of 996 heads and between the three sets, have built a set of good SPS camm'd heads Thanks to Clinton Duffy's help (I don't love doing heed work).

Bodywork

On this build, unlike the Doc I wanted full bodywork. Saldy the bike came to me with ZERO body work! Over 6 months I tracked down all the bits, all OEM and a perfect tank (I cringe to admit what this endeavor cost me). Like the 851Special, I am using Sean over at SR customs as he knows just what I am going for and his attention to detail is at the OCD level. He is also willing to do what I ask and does not judge me for being nuts!

Here are the bits headed off to paint. One thing to note are the weird pieces in the bottom right corner. These are parts from a satellite dish that I had powdered so that Sean can color match the colors on the body. Small details!

The plan is for this bike to be a deep dark blue with yellow number panels which I hope will chill the wheel / frame colors and channel the Britten V1000 a tad which make the 80s kid in me happy as hell.

The return of the body work!

One of the best days is picking up newly painted body panels, one of the worst is the day you first buy and then pay to have it repainted..... Anyway, I love the way this turned out

My painter asked me if I am a Michigan Fan. I don't follow sports but I suppose I need to get used to this question...

Bodywork dry run

After spending so much time and money on this project, I was jonzing to see if the color scheme I had drummed up would work as I had hoped. Only an ass would take perfectly painted bodywork and mount it on an unfinished bike but I had to do it.

I am VERY happy with my choices (and don't care what anyone else thinks!)

Engine Build 01/2025

This motor had been touched long ago. Inside we found ti-Rods, no flyhweel and a few other mods. As mentioned, I sourced new Jugs, pistons and heads in an effort to work around the leaking coolant issue I found when first starting the bike after 30 years. The heads were built up for my by Clinton Duffy making use of a lot of parts, keeping the SPS cams. The Jugs were sent to Millennium Tech for Nikasil coating exactly matched to each Piston (you send the pistons to them as part of the process)

Honda bond and LiquidMolly reassembly lube are your friends when working on these old things.

Mask and paint 02/2025

A lot of people will judge me for painting these motors the way I do and I can't blame them. I would love to have the time to break these things all the way down, blast and clear coat them and the build but I don't have the time. Additionally on this build, I wanted more flare so the engine has to be a color. I also expect to be back in these motors later so the side casings will likely be repainted later.

Masking is a lot of work but it turns out better that way!

Primer

Paint!

Frame meets Engine 03/2025

After 6 months of waiting, The engine and the frame are connected and all the fun starts! Well, its fun but this is also where you have to start buying all the little shit you need to finish the project, which can get quite annoying.

God bless ohlins billet lower triples.

Belts installed sans backing plates, all bolts replaced.

All the other crap starts 03/2025

At this point, all the ugly stuff starts to show up on the bike: Wiring, cooling, so on. I did source a cool speedymoto top triple that I thought would play well with the rest of the bike.

Throttle bodies and coolant hosing starting to show up here

A step back shows we are moving in the right direction!

After 5 more hours in the machine shop making the rest of the parts for the swingarm conversion, the rear suspension is installed and ready to roll.