New Ducati Superquadro Mono: Most Powerful Thumper Ever?

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It looks like big-bore single-cylinders are back in style. We’ve just had our first glimpse of the new Ducati Superquadro Mono, the company’s long-awaited follow-up to the old Supermono single-cylinder engine of the 1990s. The new thumper powerplant was built with the same goals in mind—big power from a simple engine—but it’s a much different design. Ducati says it’s the most powerful production single ever built.

To build this new engine, Ducati recycled a bunch of ideas and parts from elsewhere in its lineup. The large 116 mm-diameter piston was borrowed from the 1299 Panigale superbike. Ducati says it is the largest-diameter piston ever used on a production thumper. Engine capacity is 659 cc; to reach that figure, Ducati used a very short stroke of 62.4 mm, which means a bore-to-stroke ratio of 1.86. That’s very oversquare, hence the name Superquadro.

A short stroke engine typically means a high redline. In this case, Ducati says the Superquadro Mono will rev up to 10,250 rpm, with help from a desmodromic top end that includes 46.8 mm titanium intake valves. Those work in conjunction with 38.2 mm steel exhaust valves to burn gas as quickly as possible, pushing this engine to claimed max output of 77 hp at the crank and 85 hp if the bike is in race tune with a track exhaust. Those numbers would make it the most muscular thumper ever, even more than KTM’s current LC4 engine (which is itself reportedly undergoing R&D before a reboot).

Max torque is supposed to be 46 lb-ft at 8,000 rpm, with most of that power available from 3000 rpm onwards, and 80 percent available from 4250 rpm all the way to redline, Ducati told MCN.

With all that power, you might expect a lot of vibration, but Ducati says it kept the vibes under control with two counterbalancers. These are supposed to “significantly reduce vibrations to a level comparable to a 90° V-twin.” If you know the old Supermono design, you’ll remember that it was basically an L-twin with a cylinder lopped off and replaced with a counterbalancer, so this new design is quite a departure from that architecture.

While some of the top end is recycled from Ducati superbikes, most of the parts are new and unique to this bike—and designed with high performance in mind. Ducati made the cylinder barrel of aluminum and the alternator, clutch and head covers are magnesium alloy. Ducati also says the gear ratios are copied from the Panigale V4, with a long first gear to attack corners at low speed, allowing for maximum fun from the grunty single on corner exits.

Sounds fun! And even better, Ducati built the engine with ease of maintenance in mind. Oil changes are only required every 15,000 km; valve clearance checks come every 30,000 km.

Most interesting stuff indeed, and obviously related to Ducati’s plans to start racing motocross. But this is a lot more than just a dirt bike engine, and it will be very fun to see where this platform goes in coming months and years. We expect to see more at EICMA next month.

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