Before fuel injection...

[sccrguy1303]

Hey guys my buddy has a 1998 750 Ducati Monster that I've been helping him bring back to life. (Very poor care from previous owners) And after jetting the carbs, rewiring everything, and just generally cleaning the bike up we got her purring again.

The problem we now face is that she seems very under powered. We can get her up 3rd gear with some coaxing, but getting rolling into first is difficult. I know I've been spoiled with my torquey xb12r but I've hear the Ducati's are something of royalty over seas and should be a bit more powerful.

Here are the symptoms:

Has trouble with starting, needs the gas tank to be raised(vertical) to cold start. (I'm not sure if this is increasing the gas flow or the air flow)

Once warmed up idle's fine, and will throttle up, but throttling up under the clutch is weak and coughs to a halt.

At first we figured we were flooding the engine and running too rich and so we cut back the fuel were able to get a very nice idle. And like I mentioned before it will throttle up, but doesn't have any power behind it to get the bike moving. This is my first experience with a carbed bike, but I've worked on carbs with cars and they don't seem all that different.

Any ideas?
Thanks ahead of time!

 

[ct1200]

http://www.ducatimonster.org/forums/faq-how/

Just off idle is always the hardest part to get right.
What type of needle?
Any shims on the needle?

Checked for any leaks, the wd40 trick?

 

[Iamarchangel]

Don't understand the part about raising the gas tank. If you mean literally moving the gas tank, then that would suggest bad filter or clogged line.

What type of carbs? One of the fun aspects of some European bike were the brass floats. They'd age, get a pinhole, fill with fuel, not float, cause flood. Hard to figure out because you'd carefully drain everything before checking.

And sometimes the float tab would jam on the pivot pin flat and cause flooding.

There's a lot to be said for new school tech.