This is the story of the Pantah racer I built a few years ago. It is now in the possesion of another board member (Joe) who has plans to take it the next step of becoming a TT1.
This bike in its final form in my possession was pretty much as far you could go with a steel frame and twin shocks. The next step would have been a chrome-molloy frame or TT2 frame. Sadly I ran out of the energy for going down that path with this bike and hope it provides a suitable platform for its next incarnation.
Ducati 705 Allazurra/Pantah - 'Pantah from Hell' Racebike
The project used a Cagiva Allazurra frame, kindly donated by Ian Gowanloch, of Italspares .
Laurie Alderton in Smithfield, Sydney, Australia altered the frame to the following:
Steepened steering rake to 25 degrees
Strengthened engine mounts
Braced steering head area with triangular plates
Braced frame with extra tubes to the rear engine mount and added streamline tubes between the frame tubes above the horizontal cylinder
Removed redundant frame lugs
Added race stand lugs to swingarm
Added fairing bracket mounting plate to head stock
The frame and swingarm after the modifications and powdercoating:
Ian Gowanloch built the 705cc motor, to the following specifications:
750 F1 cases
750 F1 dry clutch
750 F1 5-speed gearbox
Carillo 58mm stroke rods
88mm Borgo pistons
Ported heads with 38mm exhaust and 41mm inlet valves
TT1 camshafts
40mm Del'Orto carburettors
Other items of note are:
40mm Marzocchi M1 front forks
EPM 18" Mag wheels in 2" front and 2.75" rear widths
Brembo full-floating cast-iron 300mm discs
Bitubo WTE shock absorbers featuring rebound, compression and preload adjustments
Brembo P08 calipers (front) with braided lines and 'Green' Brembo race pads
520 chain and sprockets
Tarozzi rear sets
WP steering damper
Verlicchi Alloy Swingarm
During my ownership I went through I lot of angst (pain) developing the bike, encountering issues with charging, gearbox shafts end float, detonation, a crash or two, to the point that I didn't really gain much pleasure with the bike at the track and decided to race a modern Ducati (800SS) instead. I do look back in fondness on this bike I created with the overwhelming support of Ian Gownaloch, and would have loved to got it sorted to my preferred level and raced it at Phillip Island.
I will at remember it as the loudest bike at the track whenever I got it fired up - what ripping sound it makes!!