Monster Gone Bad
MONSTER GONE BAD
Yellow, not mellow
Variations on a twin-cylinder theme
AT FIRST GLANCE, MARK NORRIS’ DUCATI MONSTER doesn’t look that trick. Then, you look closer-and there goes the afternoon.
“This particular Monster is probably the most modified of any, anywhere,” boasts the proud owner. “Truly, there are few original parts left. In hindsight, I should have bought a crashed bike, so many of the stock parts now grace my garage shelves.” The VP of Products at Fox Racing and a lifelong Italophile, Norris, 40, purchased his M900 new in 1995, and has been modifying it ever since. The original goal was to pare as much weight as possible, and to that end the bike bristles with titani-
um hardware. Most nuts and bolts, the swingarm spindle, the axles, the Pankl connecting rods, the spring on the Fox shock and all four pistons inside each of the three GP-spec Brembo brake calipers are made of the featherweight metal.
There’s no shortage of carbon-fiber, either. The headlight shell, fuel tank, sidecovers, rear subfenders, clutch plates and the twin mufflers on the oversized Termignoni exhaust are all made of the space-age stuff. And then there are the machined-from-billet parts, such as the license-plate holder, the rearset foot controls and the triple-clamps securing the ex-Miguel Duhamel Honda RC45 Öhlins front end. The end result is a bike that tips the scales at just 340 pounds-about 100 pounds lighter than stock.
AMERICAN FLYERS
Propelling the Monster’s greatly reduced mass is an engine that is no more stock than the chassis. Twin Keihin 41mm flatslides feed fuel/air mix through short Malossi manifolds into overbored (944cc) cylinders, inside which forged J&E pistons slide up and down. The heads were flowed and the crank balanced, knife-edged and polished by noted Supermono tuner Jeff Nash, the latter netting a 3-pound weight savings alone. A Ducati racing aluminum flywheel and Nichols aluminum clutch basket further reduce reciprocating mass, while Ducati racing cams, re-degreed for additional top-end power, open and close the valves. It is a desmo, after all.
The modified mill puts 96 horsepower to the rear tire, a race-compound Michelin radial riding on a 6-inch-wide Marchesini mag (as in magnesium) wheel. Power delivery, to quote former Cycle magazine tester Danny Coe, is “violent.” As trick as his Monster is, however, Norris is most proud of the fact that he built the bike himself. “It’s easy to take a bike to a shop and hand them $30 grand,” he says. “It’s much more satisfying to do the work yourself.”
Spoken like someone who knows.
Brian Catterson
