Have been meaning to join the forum for awhile. Have a 2009 Ducati Monster with a few modifications. Am looking for suggestions on modifications, as well as tech questions on the usual suspects (backfire, hard to start on cold morning, trouble finding neutral on occasion, flat spot at 4,000 rpm, etc).
Small world, I was just stationed at Fort Dix for about 2 years. If you haven't yet, you need to take a ride north up the river towards New Hope and Easton in PA. Let me know if you're interested and I'll dig up some directions for you.
http://www.ducatimonsterforum.org/index.php?topic=45554.0 (http://www.ducatimonsterforum.org/index.php?topic=45554.0) <----I stumbled on this thread a few days ago, there's probably 8 or 9 pages of people suggesting different mods and accessories.
Not sure what you're deployment cycle is like, but good luck out there.
Welcome - for mods, just take some time and look around most everything has been covered. An 09 what BTW?
Regarding the running stuff - tech is your friend. But to give you some starting places.
- For quite some time Ducati and everyone else has been shipping bikes with lean Fuel Tables. This is due to emissions stuff. There's a number of ways to tackle it depending on the bike and the $$$ you want to toss at it.
- Backfire. A real backfire is though the intake, are you getting some popping from the exhaust? If it's the latter a common cause, and easy fix, is that a connection in the exhaust is a bit loose and letting in air. On my 620 I'd get popping on decel or engine braking. A connection to a slip on had gotten a bit loose. I loosened it all, made sure the connections were good, snugged it all up and problem was solved.
- Flat spot, what's the range on it? What gearing (stock I'm assuming). Solution might just be a little more twist. With stock gearing, which is over tall, Ducs are boggy in the low range.
- Finding neutral. Most common reason for tricky neutral is air in the clutch hydraulics. Have you recently/ever bled the clutch line? If not, I'd start there - just flush it with all new fluid to be sure... and fluid is cheap. Tiny air bubbles in the line will compress, translating to less motion at the slave. Less motion there means less push on the pressure plate. Not enough clearance of the pressure plate and you get a little bit of engergy going through the clutch to the tranny making (minor) troubles.