Update on the Ducati…. Long read.
When I bought the bike, it only had one key. No biggie I thought, I’ll just have another one cut. Naive me didn’t realize this wasn’t the same as a 40+ year old bike that would use a conventional key. Turns out there’s a transponder in the key that is needed to deactivate the anti theft circuitry. I called the dealer and they said no problem. For $120.00 they would sell me a shiny new key.
Great I thought…. Then they told me I had to have the key cut. They advised they call in a mobile locksmith to do the “laser” cutting of the blank. How much is that I asked? $150 and up
. Well I thought I could find someone to do it for much less than that. I bought the key blank and started looking around for someone to cut the key. I learned quickly that to cut the key, the laser cutter needed the data in their program for a Ducati. Guess what, everyone had auto programs but none for motorcycles. After a long search and many km, I found a locksmith that cut it for me for a mere $60.00!
Now I need to get the key‘s transponder flashed to match the ecu on the bike. Sounded easy. The dealer said it was about 1/2 hour or $65.00. That will have to wait until the springrime because I need to take the bike in. Apparently they flash the ecu and keys to match one another. That seemed easy. But, the guy that cut my key warned me that if I ever lost both keys, I’d be looking at a new ecu because there’s a PIN imbedded in the ecu / key and once the keys are lost, the PIN becomes inaccessible. Then I would be looking at a new ecu and keys. He advised that was up to $3K from Ducati!
. I thought no big deal because I had one good key.
I returned home with my new $180 key. Looking at the key, the cut on the new key looked nothing like the cut on the original. I noticed that at the locksmith and the guy said don’t worry it will be fine. Went to the garage and I immediately went to the bike and put the key in the ignition and thankfully it fit and turned on. But now the ecu was asking for a PIN because the transponder in the key hadn’t been flashed to the ecu yet. When I bought the bike, the po told me he hadn’t done anything with the programs or menus in the speedo. When I got the bike I set set time, date, units etc. It also appeared to want me to set the PIN but I said never mind, I’ll do that later. Well now seemed to be the time, so I went to set up the PIN. To my horror, one of the two po’s had set a PIN and nobody told me what it was!
Panic had now settled in as I remembered the locksmiths warning about losing keys, replacing ecu‘s etc. After thinking about this for a moment I thought I’d try easy codes like 1234, 4321, 0000. Each one I tried was met with a large red ‘ERROR’ across the screen. Time to worry again - I thought that probably, after a defined number of tries, the ecu would lock me out. I really didnt have much of a choice and thought I had the whole winter and I’d only have to try about 999 codes to find what was in there. I decided to start at 0001. I got ready to start the task and fat fingered me punched in 1000 instead of 0001. Darn, I’ll hit enter and start all over. Well guess what, the speedo head lit up like a Christmas tree - I found the code!
Now I could get into the program mode for resetting the PIN. Entered my new PIN and was able to do a temp emergency start with the new key!
.
Next step is to wait until spring and get the keys and ecu flashed at the dealer. Maybe buying the Ducati will be a curse as some had warned. Lol.
Sorry for the long post but I had to share my victory!
I have a 1995 M600, with moderate mods (light porting, slip ons, K&N in stock airbox, snorkels removed, a bit lightened) With Dynojet kit in stock carbs, it dynoed at 53 rwhp. Later I added a 680 kit (86 mm bore) and FCR 39 carbs. So it should be 55-58 rwhp (I hope) And it is actually fast enough for a spirited ride. So your lighter and more powerful Duc should be a blast !
