888 Sp5

888 SP5

Real Race Replica

THE ROAD-GOING VERSION OF Doug Polen's Superbike is not for sale in America. Or is it?

Well, it is for sale, but only if you promise not to do any road-going. Know what we mean, wink-wink, nudge-nudge? The 888 SP5 can be legally imported if the buyer declares it will not be operated on the King's highways. Why should that be, when the bike carries lights and blinkers and all the other same equipment as the "mundane" U.S.-spec 888 SPO?

The biggest reason has something to do with what comes out of the SP5's carbon-fiber silencers when the starter button is pushed: "Say, that sounds like more than 80 decibels...."

"What?"

At idle, the SP5 could substitute for the percussion section of a large marching band. It's not obnoxiously loud, but definitely more so than the SPO. Blipping the throttle is pure NASCAR.

Loudness not always, but often,

accompanies power. The SPO we test ed in July pumped out 94 rear-wheel horsepower at 8750 rpm, with 59.4 foot-pounds of torque at 7000. This particular SP5, borrowed from a gra cious gentleman whose invitation to "thrash the thing" we couldn't resist, made 110 horsepower at 10,250 rpm (with the graph still rising when the rev limiter curtailed further exploration), and 65 foot-pounds torque at 8000.

On the road, the bike feels a little flat between 5000 and 7000 rpm-but only because it's so powerful above and below that range. It actually makes more power everywhere than the SPO. Cranked over in a corner,

there's enough torque at 4000 rpm to spin the rear Michelin in third gear. The nature of all the 888 beasts is that you're usually going fast enough without ever exceeding 6000 or 7000 revs. Why bother?

Now we know. This 888 puts on a burst of speed when the tach needle gets to 7000. The rumble gets replaced by that snorty noise Polen's bike makes, like a 10,000-rpm small-block Chevy. The Roche Replica 888 we had our paws on for a short while (March, 1992) sounded this way, too, but had to be bump-started, would take you directly to jail if you ever dared ride it on the street, refused pump gas, cost $55 grand and generally comported itself like a Jurassic Park escapee. We didn’t dyno it, but its best quarter-mile was 10.31, with a terminal speed of 139 mph. Of course, flogging these bikes at the dragstrip is tantamount to hooliganism-like using fine Scotch for paint thinner. Their clutches don’t much like it. Still, at the strip, the SP5 posted a best run of 10.86 seconds at 130 mph, roughly halfway between last year’s Roche raptor replica and the plain-Jane SPO 888 streetbike, which ran 11.25 at 123 mph for our July issue. And the SP5 may have gone a couple of tenths quicker if its owner hadn’t been observing.

Most of the 5’s extra punch comes from its upgraded fuel injection. Each cylinder’s intake tract is fed by two injectors instead of the SPO’s one. One injector in each of the SP5’s tracts works full-time; the other begins injecting at about 6000 rpm, or whenever the throttle-position sensor reads full open. The 5 also gets different camshafts and a close-ratio gearbox. Otherwise, the SPO and SP5 engines are interchangeable.

Chassis appear nearly identical. The

5’s rear-brake caliper is mounted below the swingarm, and it does come equipped with a “special” Showa fork, revalved to deal with the 5’s greater thrust.

One hundred and ten horsepower in a package this light means that you are astride a Ducati rapidly approaching the power-to-weight ratio of Honda’s blindingly fast CBR900RR, and we don’t use the word “blindingly” all that loosely. Sometimes the ultra-fast, super-quick-steering Honda makes you feel like you’re inside a hyper video game as you roost your local canyon, and you’re using up a lot of quarters. The Ducati, a bit lengthier of wheelbase and trail, trades slightly slower handling for big-time stability. Though Duca-typically stiffish at lower speeds, the bike’s Showa/Ohlins suspension cocktail feels righter the faster you go.

Whether the SP5 is worth $8500 beyond the $13,500 SPO is the big question you don’t have to ask if you a) can afford one, or b) already have one like our very excellent new friend Dave. Ducati’s claim that the 5 should weigh 31 pounds less than the stan-

dard-issue 888 was not borne out by our scales, which put the difference at only 11 pounds. Also, the SPO can be modified into making as much power as the 5 for less than $4000, we’re told. Then, too, the new 916 SP6 Ducatis should be here next year.

These are the same specious rationales people used to talk themselves

out of buying Hemi ’Cudas and 427 Corvettes when they were relatively affordable. Don’t be that stupid again. Learn from history. Get an SP5 if you can. Just don’t ride it on the street. You could get in trouble. We mean it.

John Burns