Bike details: 2002 Ducati 748E standard model, no known modifications.
As I had not ridden the bike for some months and it was due for MOT I booked it in. On the morning of MOT day I decided to ride it to a garage about 4 miles away, get some petrol, and present it for the MOT all warmed up. Did all this and headed to test centre.
Coming to a mini-roundabout on the way I started changing down. As I did this there was a loud sound like ‘BOFF’ and a cloud of smoke drifted up and the engine started firing irregularly. I whipped the cutch in and manged to coast off the road into a works driveway (Saturday, drive not in use) and came to a stop. Very cautiously I tried the starter, the engine turned over but was clearly only trying to fire on one cylinder.
I managed to request help and eventually a guy with a pickup carted the bike home. Some time later a local motorcycle mechanic, of good reputation, collected it and took it to his workshop.
His first report was that he had it running but smoking badly from front cylinder. He then cleaned out the tank but that didn’t make much difference. Next was a new injector in front cylinder, but no improvement.
He cannot find a physical problem with the engine, there is good compression, timing spot-on, valves and piston all in good condition, sparking fine. Only thing he found is this excessive petrol in front cylinder, he says you can see it when you look down the inlet. He tried another injector and throttle position sensor but still same.
Could it be something in the electronics? Has anybody had similar problems, and if so what was the answer?