Would like to try Speed 97 for the next fill up. Currently its running on Shell super and its not yet empty.

There's lot of talk about higher compression engines requiring higher octane and all that stuff but haven't found a convincing answer to that yet. I believe there are a lot of parameters which define the usage of high octane fuel - heavy usage of the bike in higher rpms is one. If someone can really enlighten once and for all how Speed 97 really benefits a 11:1 or higher compression engine and on what all parameters, that would be a great great help!

i tried googling it and i came up with some links for all of us..hope this might help you make the call..cheers

Tetraethyllead - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Engine knocking - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Octane rating - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Compression ratio - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jayant, always fill up petrol with the octane rating as specified in the owners manual. Bikes like these run on sophisticated electronics and bad fuel can mess up the AFR and engine diagnostics which can be harrowing later to fix.

Took the bike for a small spin this morning and clicked some pics. Hope you like them.

Pictures please.

Beautiful pictures. Man, that red on a Ducati is a color to die for!

Thanks mate! Wait till you see a red 1198SP. It'll just blow away everything

BTW, got my battery tender and fork sliders. Installed the sliders and the tender cable at the showroom itself. And got a monster keychain free

Will post pictures of the sliders on the weekend since it was quite dark when I reached home

damn! I want that keychain..grrr....nothing like a free keychain that works well with the bike...now you have a mini rubber tank hanging on to your tank

At 25 lakhs+ OTR Bangalore, it better blow away everything!

@JVH - Love the key chain, good you got it for free.....

@Kallan -lol

+1^^^

25lacs OTR means costlier than Diavel Carbon ... Quite a premium

LoL! Your dealer should be having it Rahul. Grab one ASAP

Very true . But its really a piece of art. Nothing like seeing it up close. Our friend Aditya was even having nasty thoughts during the party...(running for cover)

Confession time - I did not like the Diavel. To me its just quite opposite of what the Ducs do to you. Pics of all the Ducs are just great but in reality they are simply breathtaking. It was the opposite for Diavel. Pics especially here in the forum were awesome but when I checked out in flesh, it wasn't really an experience. It's a great product no doubt but fails to appeal to me.

Anyway, here's a small update I forgot to write yesterday. After I left the dealer, the fuel light warning came up and I was pissed for 2 reasons.

One because there was neither a BPCL outlet nearby to tank up Speed 97 nor a Shell outlet for Shell super. I went to the closest pump HP near Hotel Capitol and filled just 3 litres and then headed over to Sadashivnagar BPCL bunk where I filled up with 97. Let's see how it performs now.

Secondly, the mileage returned was just 13.5 where as I was expecting it to be around 17~18. Am not too worried though because half of the miles were covered in stop-go traffic. Not expecting a lot for this bike but I had calculated some distances for touring keeping mind 17~18 kmpl and this was surprising.

Rahul (Kallan19), what are you getting?

Ah! The icing on the cake!

The 1198 SP is just mind blowing. I have never skipped a heart beat with any other bikes, be it the MV Agusta, CBR1000RR, S1000RR etc. You have to see it to admire it. Pics dont do any justice to what a beauty this bike is. Even a hollywood bombshell in a 2 piece bikini would not come close to the beauty of the 1198 SP.

The guys at Ducati must have spent a few hours wiping my drool from the bike.

Waiting for pics Would love to have a keychain too. Do they sell them at the store? Will drop by over the weekend and check out their merchandise.

Yeah. Lol. Luckily we arrived 30 mins early so i could snap quite a few pics and a video of the bike revving too. They probably figured that i could potentially sneak the bike away in the midst of all that crowd and noise, so they cordoned it off and stationed some bouncers around it.

+1. The diavel looked wierd to me. It didn't excite me at all. The front looks so wide and the rear is so narrow. The bike is very compact too.

With 97 octane fuel, you will find the bike running smoother and it will feel more refined. FE will also go up but marginally. Since these machines have high compression engines, lower octane fuel will cause the ECU to retard the timing leading to marginally lower performance and FE. Bangalore traffic is crazy so FE figures will be slightly off in city riding conditions.

Sure, they do. I saw some good stuff including riding gear. But like everything else about Ducati, the tags were expensive too

Yup, looking forward to the 97 octane experience.

Here are the pics of the fork/axle and frame sliders

looks good ya J...price+source revealed would lead to much higher level of humble appreciation and gratitude :-)