How do Ducati do it in WSB??

[Pwalo]

First off this is not a Ducati bashing session. I was just wondering how the WSB (well the official team anyway) manage to get their 999s to be so quick.

I realise that WSB has bugger all to do with machinery in the real world, but my understanding is that to produce more hp you need to run higher revs. I can see that this wouldn't be a problem for a short stroke inline four, but for a big displacement V twin surely your engine life would be severly compromised. Surely you'd knacker an engine almost every race?

I take it there is no restriction on the number of engines that you are allowed to use in a season?

It's amazing watching Troy Bayliss muscling the big Duck around, and I guess that the V twin is easier on the rear tyre, but it amazes me to see Ducati winning.

[White trash]

I think it's down to dedication. Bear in mind that they build a couple of different models of 999, one of which is basically a homologated race bike on the road. Good on 'em. If the Japanese were as into it, no doubt they could begin production of a CBR/ZX10/R1/GSXR SP to compete.

Of course having Baylis on board does nothing to hurt their championship either.

Give Colin Edwards III an R1 for next season please. Then we'll see some fuckin racing!

[MikeyG]

I'm not sure if it is the WSB or MotoGP series but I was under the impression the Ducatis are running a V4 with a V4 road bike in the pipeline for homogalation stuff. I read this in Two Wheels magazine but it was the April 1st issue so could be a piss take

[Mental Trousers]

Air + Fuel = Power

So the more air and fuel you can get in the more power you make. More revs means you can get air and fuel more often, but revs aren't the only way to make more power. There's lots of things that go into it. Compression ratio, combustion chamber shape, ignition, exhaust and chamber scavenging ........ but anyway. They make lots of money and spend plenty of it on R&D.

[sAsLEX]

The new 999R aint too far off the horsepower of the currrent litre bikes, what makes a huge difference in racing though is tire preservation and throttle application.

The duke has its power pulses half as often as the 4's which means the tire is not as loaded or stressed as much as the 4's, this means troy can whack open the throttle slightly earlier than the other troy meaning he utilises his less power more efficiently, also makes for better tire life which is a big factor. Look at how haga can put down fast laps at the beginning of the race but he uses up his tires to do so and has to "cruise" near the end of races.

[sAsLEX]

but revs aren't the only way to make more power.

Like this engine here http://www.bath.ac.uk/~ccsshb/12cyl/

Maximum power: 108,920 hp at 102 rpm
Maximum torque: 5,608,312 lb/ft at 102rpm

[R6_kid]

If the Japanese were as into it, no doubt they could begin production of a CBR/ZX10/R1/GSXR SP to compete.

Of course having Baylis on board does nothing to hurt their championship either.

Give Colin Edwards III an R1 for next season please. Then we'll see some fuckin racing!

They do, well i know for a fact that yamaha does... the 2006 R1 can be bought in an SP edition from the Yamaha racing website. Comes with all the ohlins bits, brembo's blah blah, trick this trick that etc for a higher price - downside, it only comes in black.

Sorry if i didnt bother reading the other posts, but from what i've heard/read, the reason the WSB 999 is as fast is it is is because the Ducati/Xerox team employ the same tuning techniques as the MotoGP Ducati does.

[R6_kid]

Like this engine here http://www.bath.ac.uk/~ccsshb/12cyl/

Maximum power: 108,920 hp at 102 rpm
Maximum torque: 5,608,312 lb/ft at 102rpm

WTF!!! Thats insane.

[slob]

I once read a T.W.O. magazine article that was comparing BSB superbikes to each other and their road counterparts. They rated the Ducati (was a 180hp 998) the highest as it was the easiest to ride (lightest, most flickable, and stable). They compared it with bikes like the (Rizla) 200hp GSX-R1000, 180hp VTR1000SP, and 200hp R1!

The main thing to note is that Ducati has had a lot more development years in WSB than any other factory team and they have plenty of money to burn, so an using engine per race is not a big deal. Plus the race ducati weighs something like 40kgs less than the road version with a tuned chassis and lots of exotic bits. Having said that, the 999 actually struggled in their first year, with privateers like Frankie Chili ditching them in favour of the 998!

[sAsLEX]

Frankie Chili ditching them in favour of the 998!

along with half his clothes after a race

[WRT]

Couple of other points, as a drawback for V2's, apparently its easier to make IL4's lighter than V2's, simply because of the inherant strenght of having the cylinders all together rather than sticking out in different directions.

Something that is an advantage of the V2 shape however is that it is narrower than IL4's, meaning less frontal drag at higher speeds. And drag is a major on bikes, they arent very aerodynamically "clean" with all the bits hanging off them (like the rider). I'm no expert but I would hazard a guess that less drag at high speeds, combined with better traction out of the turns would help to even out the diffences in weight and power.

[SPman]

5,608,312 lb/ft!.....now......if we could just utilise that somehow....be a bugger to corner though!

[jonbuoy]

Like this engine here http://www.bath.ac.uk/~ccsshb/12cyl/

Maximum power: 108,920 hp at 102 rpm
Maximum torque: 5,608,312 lb/ft at 102rpm

It looks like a two stroke as well.

[vifferman]

I was under the impression that when WSB allowed the IL4 bikes to go to one litre, they had restrictors fitted and also had a higher minimum weight limit than the V-twins?

[gamgee]

Like this engine here http://www.bath.ac.uk/~ccsshb/12cyl/

Maximum power: 108,920 hp at 102 rpm
Maximum torque: 5,608,312 lb/ft at 102rpm

fuck doing a headgasket on that!! :gob:

[Fooman]

Air + Fuel = Power

So the more air and fuel you can get in the more power you make. More revs means you can get air and fuel more often, but revs aren't the only way to make more power. There's lots of things that go into it. Compression ratio, combustion chamber shape, ignition, exhaust and chamber scavenging ........ but anyway. They make lots of money and spend plenty of it on R&D.

Sort of correct, but not strictly. Replace "Power" in your first couple of sentences with "Force" (or even more strictly, "Pressure").

The combustion inside a cylinder causes a increase in pressure. This pressure, over the area of the piston, converts to a force on the piston. That force, is transmitted to the crank throw, via the conrod. Thanks to the stroke of the crankshaft, that force is seen by the rotating crank as a torque about the axis of rotation. Because the crank is rotating, that torque is being applied over a circular path, in some amount of time. Which is power.

For linear forces, work/energy (Joules) = force along a distance, (e.g. Newtons * Metres)
power (Joules per second, or Watts) = work done in a certain abount of time

or more simply put, linear power = force times velocity

For rotational motion, work/energy (Joules) = torque (force times the length of the torque arm (stroke)) around a rotational distance (e.g. radians (there are 2*pi radians in a revolution)). Power = work done in a certain amount of time.

or more simply put, rotational power = torque times rotational velocity, or W = Nm * rad/s

If you want to use ft.lbs, hp and revs instead of Nm, W and rads/s, you get the familiar relationship, hp = torque (ft.lbs) * revs (rpm) /5252.

So, if you want to increase power, you increase either the torque or the speed.

To increase the torque, you can:

- increase pressure from forcing more fuel and air in the cylinder (e.g. turbocharging, supercharging, ram air), or using a fuel with higher specific energy e.g. nitromethane, or increase the effciency of combustion, so more of the energy goes into increasing the pressure, rather than heating up the combustion chamber and piston.

- increase the piston area. But you can't keep the displacement the same, as the stroke has to decrease to do so. This will reduce the torque by the same amount. So you displacement has to go up. You also have to use more air/fuel if you want to maintain the effective pressure. This also increases reciprocating mass, increasing the stress in the conrods and crank, for the same revs. So you have to decrease the revs if you don't want to break the bits.

- increase the stroke. Again, this means the displacement has to go up, increasing the reciprocating mass and stresses (for the same revs).

To increase the revs you can:

-Make the reciprocating masses smaller, so that the limiting stresses and inertias are reached at higher revs. But this will decrease the torque - smaller piston, shorter stroke. Unless you use more cylinders to maintain displacement. But that tends to introduce more frictional losses (and more bits to break).

- make everything stronger and lighter, so the limiting stresses on the components are reached at higher revs.

So, in summary, to make more power, 1) make the engine bigger (and burn more fuel) 2) make it stronger and/or lighter so it runs faster (and burns more fuel) or 3) make it more efficient (and burns the same amount of fuel) or any combination of the 3 which will be a compromise in one way or the other.

1) is the cheapest and easist way of doing this - "there ain't no substitute for cubic inches" 2) i$ the MotoGP/WSB/F1 way of doing thi$ (and is the expen$ive way). 3) is the boring, but ultimately the best way of doing it, as it will always be possible to use the other methods as well.

The actual answer to the original question is as somebody mentioned, the way the Dukes lay the power onto the track enable the power to be applied more rapidly than the higher reving 4's - better acceleration out of corners. I 've recently read an interview with Aaron Slight, made just after he had gone to the SP1 - he was blown away by the tractability of the V2's - described it as "finding out what the Ducati's had that the RVF didn't" or something like that. I suspect the V2's have a lower rotational inertia than the 4's, meaning it can turn in more quickly as well.

FM

Oh, 10 characters...

[skelstar]

I saw a doco on Sky about this beasty. They can shut a couple of cyclinders off while in transit and do some maintenance. They assemble the whole thing in a factory, fiddle a bit, then disassemble before putting it into the ship as its too big to move in one peice.

I love discovery channel.

[Adam_B]

I'm not sure if it is the WSB or MotoGP series but I was under the impression the Ducatis are running a V4 with a V4 road bike in the pipeline for homogalation stuff. I read this in Two Wheels magazine but it was the April 1st issue so could be a piss take

MotoGP is a V4, actually an L4 = a 90degree V4, Desmosedici (16valve).
Yep there is a production bike in the pipeline :rockon: whether or not it makes it into production is another question.

The WSB L twins are allowed under the rules to have more development work done on them from standard than the IL4's are.
So they can bring the power up from 150HP stock to about 190HP.
Some of the IL4's are putting out 210HP.
I quess the aero of the 999's make up the straight line speed difference. They are quite a bit narrower than the IL4's.
And out of the corners I doubt if any are using max HP anyway so they don't loose ground to the IL4's

And yes they are easy to ride and very chuckable and all the HP goes straight to the ground and all the power is available anywhere in the rev range. God I want one.

[Lou Girardin]

It was clear at Monza that the Spewzooks had far more power than the others, but the Duc has better drive out of corners and that kept him ahead. Possibly better corner speed too.
But I've heard that they're spinning the Ducs so hard that they change engines like other teams change oil.