Ducati TT 1 Replica Racer by Italian Iron Classics for Road & Track, Post #2

Our Ducati TT 1 Replica Racer for the Road & Track was a big "hit" at the World Superbike event at Laguna Seca Racetrack this past July 2019!! I purposely had the fuel tank and windscreen off of the bike so that all attendees to our tent could see "under the hood/bonnet" the quality of our work and to see what it takes to build one of these magnificent machines. Shown below is our TT 1 in Blue on Red livery in honour of Tony Rutter shown above and with the addition of the "750 F1" decal like Jimmy Adamo's racer that was tuned by Reno Leoni here in the US. Our bodywork arrives typically already painted with decals or they can be ordered without paint/decals.

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We have a small but talented team here at Italian Iron Classics but this still remains, for me, a retirement business where I can spend time working on what I love and enjoy which are Ducati Racing Motorcycles. This is our focus, however, we have been known to occasionally stray into working on Brit Bikes such as the Norton's that were raced by one of my favorite racers & engineers, Peter Williams. I started loving motorcycle racing when growing up as a wee lad in Edinburgh, Scotland. It has been a dream to follow my passions full time after a career in the US corporate world where I was afforded the opportunity to race modern and vintage Ducati's and to work on bike builds in my spare time. 

As the US based dealer for Two Wheel Classics-UK, we started with our chrome-moly TT frame that was bolted to our Ducati/Cagiva 750 cc Elephant engine (unique piece with kick start lever shaft) that I picked up from my friends in Oisterwijk, The Netherlands and after we rebuilt the top end. Our TWC kits come complete with the necessary bracketry for a TT Racer, a spirited "Track Weapon" or in our case, for both Road & Track. We can accommodate offering  complete chassis and bodywork kits or offer individual bits "cafeteria" style. Contact me at italianiron@msn.com and let's discuss your requirements. 

We offer billet adjustable and fixed Yokes/Triple Clamps for different sized forks. In this case, we are using a rebuilt set of 41.7 mm Marzocchi M1R's in our billet, standard fixed yokes as I hope that this bike will be an enjoyable, compliant, but spirited street bike. We also make our own billet rear sets, fairing brackets and other race bits to fit your specific application. We did elect to use our billet TWC "Spyder" clutch actuator that holds the slave cylinder for our dry clutch engine. It is powder-coated black to fit the distinctive black of these early, raucous, two-valve Ducati Desmo engines. Our Dual-Plug, Race Engine heads were "flowed" by Jan Biggelaar at the Biggelaar Performance shop in the Netherlands. This race engine has now been completely rebuilt and refreshed. 

As this TT 1 Racer will be available for use on Road & Track, we elected to make our own wiring loom. We do offer wiring looms for either street or track use. In the case of our TT1 Racer, we made our own wiring loom for this project to accommodate our dual-headlamp configuration in the front cowling and for use with a single Speedhut dual purpose Tacho and Speedo Gauge. Switch gear came from a Supersport and we upgraded the coils with Dyna units to run our dual-plug heads. 

Our wiring guru, Bill had his work cut out for himself to squeeze all of the wiring neatly into the front of the cowling and under the instruments. Hinged Brackets were made and mounted off of the front fairing mount to hold the front LED lamps and to allow us to get the adjustment that we need to point the headlamps in the correct direction to be functional on the street. We are using period correct, rebuilt Brembo clutch and brake master cylinders as we are now Brembo dealers. In contrast to our period master cylinders, we are using a modern white-faced Speedhut dual-purpose gauge where the speedo runs off of a GPS signal. I prefer using this set-up versus using a mechanical speedo drive because this  allows us to more effectively to cut spacers to properly align all components such as our 17" Brembo 3 spoke 3.5" front wheel, 300 mm floating rotors and 4-pot Brembo brake calipers. 

The only real fabrication that was needed on our build was dealing with the rear swingarm. As this engine came from an Elephant, the swingarm spindle bushes in the engine cases needed to be changed to allow for the use of our Supersport swingarm. Fortunately, we were able to pull and remove the original bushes where the swingarm spindle pivots in the engine cases. Then we were able to make our own bushes in aluminum with copper sleeves and a copper washer with seal on the engine cases to seal in the engine oil. Otherwise, our Supersport swingarm bolted on to our engine cases securely after we added the spacers we made between the box section of the swingarm and the engine case. Now our YSS rear shock mates the frame to the swingarm brilliantly. This allowed us to complete with the mounting of the rear wheel, rear brake and chain. 

When taking on a build such as this, do make sure that you "dry-fit" all of the components. Luckily we have 30 plus years of working on bike builds and we have enough expertise to execute a solution when bits do not fit perfectly. However, if you use a standard engine, swingarm and suspension from a donor Supersport or Monster, then many of the "trials and tribulations" of a TT build can be mitigated or even eliminated. It is our preference that we can assist you as the builder with our kits, specialty bits and expertise to make the process of building a specialty TT racer an enjoyable, fulfilling and rewarding experience. However, we also do custom builds for customers. 

We do offer both Titanium and Stainless Steel 2:1 Exhaust Systems for your TT Racer builds that run off of the LH side of the bike. Our exhaust systems are available for the Pantah based engines and for the modern or Paso based engines where both carburetors fit between the cylinder heads and in effect, face each other. In the case of our build, we elected to use a factory 2:1 header pipe from a Supersport out of inventory that runs the exhaust muffler off of the RH side of the machine as we are using a factory side-stand that bolts to the LH side of our TT 1 racer.

We found a collector and silencer from an early Kawasaki Z1 and cut it to fit our application and welded on a reverse cone piece from Cone Engineering in California. We cannot wait until we get our 36 mm SmartCarb flat-slide carbs flowing fuel into our 750 cc dual-plugged and flowed race engine with 13:1 compression. Will post dyno runs on future blog posts. 

Seen above is a photo of our stand at the World Superbike Races at the world famous Laguna Seca Racetrack and feature our TT 1, TT 1000 and TT 2 in the back . We arrived bright and early each morning to set-up and I am happy to report that we met some great enthusiasts and made some great new friends as we were kept extremely busy over the course of the event!! Stay tuned as we work to complete the rebuild of my Ducati Spaggiari Scuderia inspired 750 ss Bevel Racer, another 996 rs and then start on our TT 1100. There is never a dull moment at Italian Iron Classics and in retirement!!