Ducati Crank 1 - A closer look

[@YAMR1M]

The base forging for the 1098 crank is the same crank for the multi strada too. The basic forging will allow a small difference in stroke 67.1mm for the 1098 and 67.7mm for the 1200 Multistrada. The 1198 race bike has a 60.8mm stroke which may have used the same basic forging as the 999R and RS race bikes which were a 58.8mm stroke. The linished finish on the webs will be due to the engine builder running different weight rods and/or pistons and drilling the web to rebalance it is not really an option as drilling the 90 hour nitrided steel will be hard on the drill bits and risk cracking around the heavy metal plugs. Drilling the densamet or tungsten plugs can be done but again they are very tough so linishing is the option most builders take. The heavy metal plugs in my experience are never removed as it can damage the surface finish of the holes which also have the nitrided hardening inside the holes. The small hole along the plain shaft on the output of the crank is if I remember correctly an oil feed for the primary drive too... Toine will know this better than me. The balance factor is 50% the weight of the total piston mass including rings and gudgeon pin. 50% of the small end of the con rod and 100% of the big end of the con rod weight when weighed end to end.

[@dirtygarageguy]

So this makes sense, with differing linished 'amounts' due to the differing material removed from the weights.

[@YAMR1M]

I know... Thats why it was my job for 15 years... Had enough of the machine shop so got out to do something else away from motorsport then ended up doing something else...... In bloody motorsport...At least I work from home now.... Now its just Yamaha in world supersport and several BSB superbike teams I do work for.. The rest is just my own stuff 'cause I wanted to have a life outside of racing. Back to the linished finish.. John Hackett at JHP (now Ducati Coventry) did try to push out the heavy metal plugs to add weight to a customer engine build after doing some changes. We told him not to do it but had us put new plugs into the crank and after one race the engine was destroyed when they came out after the crank cracked on the outer edge of the web and just allowed them to come out.. Thats why we never removed them and none of the factory supported teams we made billet cranks for ever removed them.. It was only when the FIM changed the rules to force the teams to run OEM cranks that we stopped making the billet ones for WSB.

[@joonya4427]

Richard Vanags Awesome extra info. Really interesting. Thanks.

[@YAMR1M]

The original superbike Ducati cranks did not have that though hole in the crank pin they used to have a larger blind hole drilled and reamed at an angle on the centerline of the crank pin. This was used as the crank pin oil journal and to help reduce weight the hole was plugged with an alloy plug which filled the hole but was shaped to allow oil around the outside of the plug. It also allowed the crank pin to hold a little more oil as the Ducati was and still is prone to oil starvation when the bike wheelies. This little bit more oil worked as a small reservoir for those short moments when the rider could starve the oil pick up. The way we produced them was not cost effective for a production engine but as it was World Superbike and the rules were quite open back when they ran the 888,916 to 996 and then the 999 we could supply billet steel cranks. The Ducati "customer" superbikes the RS version had the Ducati supplied Forged cranks but all of the works bikes ran billet steel ones as the forged ones would break usually in the same way this road bike crank broke. The billet cranks never suffered the same breakage and did have a longer life of about 3000km before they were binned. The customer superbikes had a life of about 1500 km and at WSB meetings they would often swap engines between the first and second race. They would usually use them like this Race 2 then practice, qualifying and Race 1 at the following round. Then swap to a fresh engine after race one then rinse and repeat after rebuilding at least one engine between rounds. The full factory teams would do the same but the life of the cranks was longer but rebuilds were still done as specced. The Ducati engines kept it all quite simple with their crank design compared to the Honda SP1 and SP2 super bike factory cranks and even the failed Harley Davidson who had Cosworth trying to develop the VR1000 Superbike in the end which had bolt on densamet/tungsten counterweights and a split pin design with the two cylinders still at the same angle as the "Production" engine but they offset the single crank pin with a 15 degree "step" to change the firing order slightly. All interesting stuff at the time and being involved with Yamaha on the Yamaha R7 was one of my favourite jobs. These image links were for my Yamaha R1 crank and I am lucky enough to still have the original drawing of the crank at home. i.imgur.com/4a6Sa15.jpg i.imgur.com/PWHMLKw.jpg It was a great job which ran its time and when the company was about to be sold off I had enough and needed to do something else. So I built a bike to break the Nurburgring lap record and sort of retired to do something I wanted to do.. Now I make parts in Carbon fibre and have done work for several manufacturers including the largest producer of motorcycles in the world, on a concept, land speed record bike. I do like Matts Video's I just wished he had done a little more research on the crank one... But then I guess he may think I am a BS artist like Del. But in my case I have been involved in racing all my life from family involvement through being a racer, engineer building race chassis through to the crank stuff for WSB, MotoGP, WRC, WTCC and F1. I occasionally share my work through facebook when I do something interesting that I am allowed to show like the Sylvain Guintoli Suzuki stuff the other year and the Gino Rea and Luke Stapleford parts as well as the Royal Enfield project. But the more interesting stuff for the race teams is still all quite secret. i.imgur.com/h1P0RLX.jpg

[@thruxt0677]

Richard Vanags start a duke channel mate..or do you not want your brains picked. what are your thoughts on the 70's 900 ?

[@badattitude9127]

Excellent explanation, even I understand what you are getting at. Great video

[@communist-hippie]

Just a tip. By a happy accident when cleaning out carbs, i used freeze spray on can. Instead of dustspray which i didnt have at the time. The great thing with that, is it burst out a mist from the exit side/hole. I think you have good understanding of this. But a quite simple way of assuring its right. And id imagine youll se the mist on camera. good if its quit intricate tubing. Was helpful when learning what hole goes to where. When working on my carb

[@dirtygarageguy]

Great idea - thanks

[@tuoppi42]

This likely would fail catastrophically in slightly different fashion; how about drilling the lube holes straight from the crank pin into main shaft channel, then connect them with a centralized large (mass reduction) oil channel along the pin and plug the large channel ends? A plug made of some light handy material could go all the way through and be shaped to eliminate the reservoir that would otherwise form when the big channel is combined with the oil line.

[@brentsmith5647]

Brilliant video thank u👁️❤️👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍

[@thruxt0677]

that is Bellisimo! ..now I know why there so lovey dovey

[@TheBlibo]

Hi I am wondering if material had not been removed to lighten the big end journal would it still have cracked / snapped I can understand making everything as light as possible for racing but for a road bike is it worth the trade of for longevity? What do you think

[@dirtygarageguy]

In the next videos....... That's what I think

[@sm400]

Good engineering by Ducati...on a 916 the oil way blanking caps start grinding on main bearing rather than falling out completely...😂😂..unfortunately they have allergic reaction to no oil pressure pretty rapidly..

[@dimtt2]

The small hole on the side of the crankshaft is there to lubricate the starter sprag clutch.

[@YAMR1M]

Oh the small scallop shape in the pin oil drilling is done after it has been produced and should be run vertically no horizontally but sometimes as they are done by the guys doing the finishing and deburing process they don't always do them correctly. On the V10 Cosworth F1 cranks they were actually machined into the crank pin with a fairly tight .002 tolerance as the pin oilway holes were only a 2.5mm bore. The mains were drilled 6mm but the oil pump would run some strange oil pressure and the way the cranks were drilled it would assist how the journals were fed. I am sure if Matt did a drawing of it and had all the sizes, diameters and offsets as well as the engine RPM he could calculate how or why they did it that way.

[@thomasphilyaw8593]

The crank looks like it been massaged and loved a whole lot trying to make it super slippy. I wonder if Ducati man did that?

[@sharealike1]

Very interesting pointing out the oil route to the big ends Mat. Is this a plain main bearing crank or rolling element (balls or rollers)? The oil feed to those bearings is a very poor design. Oil only enters the middle of the crankshaft at the primary drive end (the right hand end by the riders right foot). Its route from there out to the crank pin in the right to left cross drilling means it will feed better to the left side big end. Only when the left bearing is satisfied will oil then be willing to use the outer end of the left cross drilling to reach the right hand side big end. I think the journal of the poorer fed right bearing is the one that is worn? It would be the first to suffer oil starvation if the supply failed. The engine has a 90 degree V twin layout. You would expect the actual oil holes feeding out of the pins to be 90 degrees apart if they are in the optimum place relative to each big end bearings loading. Some engines have two oil feed holes per big end journal 180 degrees round from each other which makes four holes in total for a shared crank pin like these. The Ducati design only allows one per journal so one of them is not in the optimum position. I think this stems from their choice of rolling element main bearings in these examples rather than plain bearings. Can't feed oil past a rolling element main as you can with a plain bearing. I think Ducati have now gone to plain main bearings for their later engines.

[@dirtygarageguy]

rolling element and balls.

[@sharealike1]

Finish on the cranks main bearing journals not that important then as the centre of the ball bearing comes withits own journal. Was probably mounted correctly between centres for the additional work to be done. The marks said to be from a three jaw chuck could be from a drive dog. Turning between centres means theres no actual drive through the centres. By dog I mean those teardrop shape things with a clamp bolt through the point. Clamp them tight round a journal and the opposite end driven by a peg sticking out from a face plate.

[@geovani60624]

can you make a video about what gives an engine more horse power and tork? (like the stroke cicle, valves timming, number of valves etc...)

[@dirtygarageguy]

Yeah - that's what most of these videos are about.....

[@geovani60624]

for me most of them are about what that doddley do, or explaining how the buburubu works etc... i'm asking for a video of how to turn one street engine into a racing engine and the little secrets that gives the engine more hp

[@geovani60624]

i'm asking for a video of engine mods basically

[@chrisvinicombe9947]

More air more fuel , less friction and imbalance from moving parts , better cooling and improved ignition control. Mats been working on doing most of this fun stuff with that rg500 lump. 💪😈 When we gonna see more of that lovely lump?

[@DistinctOgre]

@@chrisvinicombe9947 My ole lady has some lovely lumps.

[@pedsvids]

Good failure analysis stuff, on that subject, I see TST have finally come up with some ambiguous bollocks 're their R3 engine debarcle. :-)

[@jamesdougan8789]

hope matt takes a look and gives his thoughts on the R3 ......can you post a link to the R3 evans will fix it video

[@dirtygarageguy]

James Dougan - did you not see the R3 videos?

[@jamesdougan8789]

yes i did see your videos (very good ) but i wanted a link to the new tst vid to see what they came up with in their annalist which i found kzbin.info/www/bejne/eJiwoJZ3js2Vh7M they sorta imply that its as quick as a zx10 around the track but the zx10 rider is a bit of a pussy on the brakes and corner speed and getting on the gas again and hasn't got much of a clue on the racing line (2nd corner in way to tight on entry ) cheers james D

[@beachboardfan9544]

Shouldnt you have labeled this video #2?

[@Altruistic00]

Well someone is a very keen on telling his lifestory/experience in the comment section ;)

[@jamesdougan8789]

so its the strength of the crank has been compromised with all the oilways and weight offset drilling making the crank flex and fail ?? another excellent video from matt ..... another stupid question from me lmao ...... looking forward to the next installment loving the series matt and learning heaps cheers james D

[@YAMR1M]

The through hole actually adds some strength and it is reamed to remove any stress raisers that can occur. A tube will always be stiffer than a bar if the wall thickness is great enough. The problem is the cross drilling and how close it is to the fillet radius's of the main and the crank pin. Simple... Its been an issue ever since Ducati started racing superbikes..

[@jamesdougan8789]

thanks richard for your input and for the pictures that you posted also... they are pure works of art i hope you can come back and impart some of your knowledge again as with your short post i have gained knowledge that i would've never got otherwise if you can post a link to some of your projects i for one would be very interested to see some of your work cheers james D

[@YAMR1M]

Cheers James, After over 20 years of engineering and working on some amazing bikes like the WCM Moto GP bike as well as the Petronas FP1 road and race bikes.. I think the R7 stuff was something I was most proud of. The rules changed for the superbike classes and as much as I liked making the car stuff I had my feet firmly in the motorcycle camp and lost some of the love of working at the company. I had been asked to do other things too and was importing ISR Brakes, Chicken Hawk Tyre warmers and a few other things which were hard to get in the UK at the time. So when things started to change and the company was being put up for sale I left.... I was lucky to be able to do almost what I wanted and was asked to build a prototype for a planned limited production run of bikes that were going to sell for £106,000 each.. The bike got some publicity but it was more about working and doing what I loved even though the bike was always doomed to fail. I sort of retired for a while to build a little project of my own for me to ride on track. I then had to learn how to work with composites due to a company letting me down badly and one of the other companies involved gave me a start to get my bike done.. I spent 4 years learning to work with resins from cheap polyester to epoxies and then using pre-pregs. None of this was paid for so I had to fund it myself and learn with the help of many of the people in the industry who I had known from my motorsport days both as a rider and during my time engineering. Now I still have not finished the project 6 years later but it is now effectively my job and I am lucky enough to pick and choose my work. I still do BSB and some World Superbike stuff for my friends who either are involved with a team or are racers in those championships. Luke Stapleford is a good friend who was involved with a record breaking project so I help him out still and I do try and keep my facebook pages up dated when I can.. My current work is mostly fuel tanks at the moment and a tarmac rally car project. So come find me on facebook... I am easy to find lol...

[@inlinescreamer]

So many holes you can sell them on ebay as cheese graters.

[@hanswurst5493]

i think ducati forgot to put copper grease on it as adviced by ebc hahahaahaahaaa

[@shedbuiltable]

why dont they just drill a conventional hole as large as necessary,plug it with a super light alloy and drill it properly

[@beachboardfan9544]

1st!

[@Matt-we7si]

have you not heard, were stopping doing this , dont believe the hype

[@beachboardfan9544]

NEVER!

[@dirtygarageguy]

The comments section is for viewers - if they wanna do this, then they can. I'm not going to stop them "we're stopping doing this" - Said who? You? - Good luck with that......

[@beachboardfan9544]

YEA! Fuck you Matt! ....... both Matts! HAHAHAHA

[@hrbestalkinme3690]

That looks like a lawn mower crankshaft lol. No roller bearing on the con rod big end? Theres the problem. 1 piece crank = no roller bearig = time bomb.

[@mrbigstuff6149]

💩Fart 2? It said 1pooh!

[@Desertduleler_88]

Looks as if these cranks have a built in weakness due to the off set holes drilled into it. I'm glad l don't own a Ducati.