Out Into The Light

[Chris Canning]

Had a tidy up in the garage and brought this out to wipe the dust off, with a lithium battery fitted years back but well looked after started first press of the button, probably easier to list what is stock rather than the other way round.

[Swamper]

Nice looking S. How short do you have the arm adjusted?

[Chris Canning]

The short answer pardon the pun is short...the first thing I always look at on an S is the angle of the rear bevel, the majority are angled up where as mine is straight, which was all part of getting the bike to steer as I wanted.

Where things got complicated put an Ohlins in the front and it was longer than the OE, I could not raise the rear anymore, so went back to the stocker...what I should have done is got it shortened...


What you do not see in the photo is the story behind the rear bevel...there’s plenty on this site about attempts to change the gearing and various options, I didn’t like any of them because if the complications and hassle, and as you can see have had the bike 22 years and waited till another plan turned up.

Had a light bulb moment years later...what happened when BM ran the Boxer Cup race at Daytona...??? i’ll Cut a very very long story down and found out they(BM) made 32 higher ration bevels, had a friend( Gus) go to Germany who also had/has a Boxer and tracked one down, the end result is 100mph at 4900 revs.

Sadly with other modern bikes in the garage including a KTMGT, the old S doesn’t get used much, and when I checked has 37,000 on the clock from the days I/we did.

[Chris Canning]

As for the bike.

5 gallon tank
AP 6 pot Callipers full floating discs
Ohlins rear
Dymag wheels.
Power Commander
Custom exhaust system it’s 2 into 2
Carbon body work

That’s just what I can remember.

[R1100S-Slick]

Wow, expensive list of goodies, but sweet results..

[Chris Canning]

20 years ago just the norm fitting the above, still know guys who have the same tucked away at the back of their garage...

Just remembered Lennies Induct +SJ Filter, 1200 injectors.

Paid a fortune all those years ago for a pair of rocker covers that replaced the originals broke one !!! Never managed to source another....just looked on German eBay a pair were sold in July grrrrr.

[tomvv11]

Chris, I've seen posts of yours that listed easily twice this number of upgrades/mods. I envy your 6th gear rpm/mph. Have always felt they made 6th too short in relation to 5th.

[Chris Canning]

Just a summary of all the info that has appeared on here over the years, and still never got around to a big bore kit...think it was ‘Curve’ on here who built his own rear dif, and after the light bulb moment of ‘How did they get around Daytona’ I have been very lucky to have had access to both WSB and Moto GP paddocks so I could accost individuals for info, sadly i’m Not allowed to get into that as it opens way too many doors....

And in fairness the friend I bought the bike off all those years ago did a lot of work on the bike as well, the problem he had.....he was building the bikes for Troy Baylis here in the UK for the BSB series and was using the bike(1100s) to ride to race meetings , and when I pointed out the irony of top Ducati tuner on a BMW he sold the bike too me over 20 years ago.