Talk:Ducati L-twin engine

September 2006

The title is clumsy, but i wondered at long file names.. the intention is to do "DucatiVtwinsW" for the water cooled variants. Does that make sense, or is there a better way?Seasalt 12:42, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

Now that the full set of history segments is up, how do I get rid of the unnecessary capital A after DucatiVtwinsSeasalt 14:36, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

You just get it completely renamed. GraemeLeggett 11:24, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

This should be merged into the Ducati entry

There's no reason to have a separate entry like this, since there is a discussion of the motorcycle designs in the Ducati entry. This should be merged.Izaakb 21:18, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Then the Ducati page becomes too big

But if that doesn't matter?Seasalt 12:07, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

–→I don't think it matters, the sections should be compact, no more than 2-3 paragraphs and a photo anyhow. How much do you need to say about a the engine styles after all?

rgds Izaakb 21:46, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

Seasalt - I understand what you're doing now; making a catalogue for Ducati bikes. That's great. One suggestion: The "V-twin" to be divided between bevel and belt drive engines. The difference is pretty significant.

Also, maybe a survey page on the complete range of Ducati motorcycle engines? I tried to put a cursory one in the main article. Izaakb 02:00, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

Not sure what u mean...I did a desmodue, desmotre, desmoquattro,air cooled, water cooled outline...do you mean an individual engine list? (I was sorta leaving Ducati alone for the moment. The articles i write take an awful lot of time to distil.....and i dont want to burn out on a topic.) You sure you really cant do it? I've been filling in obscurer brands like Dot, Douglas, and Rudge lately.Seasalt 06:38, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

I posted that note before I saw all you had done. If you've done the bevel vs. belt and single/twin, then it's grand. Izaakb 12:58, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

I'll take that as a compliment. Whats the deal with the "lifestyle products"? Own company or under licence? Any idea?Seasalt 13:57, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

An engine by any other name

Ducati refers to their engine as an "L-Twin" in both English and Italian.

The heart of the Monster 696 is the legendary Desmodromic L-Twin cylinder engine.

— Ducati Motor Holding S.p.A.

Il cuore del Monster 696 è il leggendario bicilindrico Desmodromico a L.

— Ducati Motor Holding S.p.A.

Of course, the "L-twin" label is not a precise technical term any more than "V-twin". To avoid confusion, the article should refer to the engine by the term that is used by the manufacturer and riders. It is fair that the V-twin article refers to the "L-twin" as little more than a naming quirk and I agree that the L-twin article should redirect to V-twin, but inside the Ducati article the Ducati terminology should be used. Simply add a link back to the broader V-twin article to clarify the naming difference.

As there is no international standards body that unifies the terms for engine configuration, articles should use the terms in use inside the community. One might argue that an article should not use colloquialisms in a description. But neither L-twin nor V-twin are could be expected to be any more clear than the other to a naive reader. Instead, an article should build on descriptions using the terminology one would expect to hear when speaking with a Ducati salesman.

As an analogy, articles on British cars usually use the terms "bonnet" and "boot" rather than "hood" and "trunk". There is obviously no technical distinction, but when speaking with an American who is a British car enthusiast you would expect them to use British terminology. Imagine if all the British car articles used the American terms "hoot" and "trunk" and had only a footnote saying, "Oh, by the way, if you ever talk to a British car enthusiast they aren't going to use the terms just used. Instead, they will use an entirely different set of equivalent terms." This situation should be the other way around when discussing specialized terms. An article should use and define local terminology and have a footnote that notes alternative jargon used elsewhere.

The sight of seeing V-twin all over a Ducati article personally sickens me so much that I want to claw my eyes out. Go ask Google Translate to translate "bicilindrico a L" from Italian to English. Hint: you don't get V-twin from our Googelian masters. Now that we have that settled we can move on to the question of is a Ducati called a "duck" or a "duc"? Of course by all sensible reason, it should be a "duke", but then the KTM people would complain. I prefer to go with "duc" to avoid confusion.

• They are all pretty and they are all fun to ride. So, how do you tell them apart?
• 
  Duc
• 
  Duke
• 
  Duck

--Noah (talk) 15:34, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

The problem is that V-twin has a technical meaning (i.e. a two-cylinder engine with transverse crank, with both connecting rods riding on the same crank journal, or somesuch). The problem is further compounded when you consider there are plenty of similar functioning engines which are distinguished only by the angle of the cylinders, i.e (BMW 180 deg, Moto Morini's 87 degree and 72 degree V engines, etc etc). Ducatisti call the Ducati engine an L-twin out of distinction but this does not translate to any other technical description. It is sufficient IMHO to include a footnot or sub that indicates that Ducati calls it an "L-twin." Anything else introduces confusion.

Moreover, using Google translation for "bicilindrico a L" is irrelevant. Ducati may call it a supersonic nitrous oxide burner for all they care, and it's still just a motorcycle. Don't confuse marketing with the broader engineering descriptions. Plenty of very respectable letter "V"s have a 90° orientation. izaakb ~talk ~contribs 03:39, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

An idential discussion can be found on talk:Ducati 848, settling on the Ducati 848 having a 90° V-twin engine. Ducati branded this V-twin configuration as L-twin because one cylinder is vertical while the other is horizontal, making it look like a letter L.

Proseline Cleanup

I'm not sure how things stood during the 2006 discussion above, but currently there are separate articles on Ducati Corse racing history, and Ducati Singles, as well as many more individual articles for each bike. So I think some of the racing details can go in the racing article, and the fine grained detail about each model can go to that model's page. The remainder should fit in a fairly clear timeline, with a compact prose section to round it out.

All of which is easier said than done, I know.--Dbratland (talk) 15:14, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

Bevel drive paragraph

This paragraph seems rather long, and is more about Ducati history than the bikes themselves. I suggest it should be hived off onto a different page(new or existing) that deals with Ducati history. Arrivisto (talk) 16:51, 29 August 2011 (UTC)