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Hello-
Talk to me about 1975 Ducati 860 ignition failures. I think I may have experienced such a thing today. Thus far, this bike has never left me stranded or even so much as burped. Up until today it has always settled into a nice idle when at a stop. Earlier this evening, I was riding it down one of my favorite empty roads doing 90+ and it just felt like it was loosing power no matter how much throttle I grabbed. I pulled over to the side of the road and it died. It's got a brand new battery and is in excellent tune. After kicking 15 or so times (very unusual) it fired up and I was making my way home when, of course, I hit a red light. It died again at idle. This time it took better than 20 minutes to fire it up again. I flew through all the other stop signs and pulled into my garage. It died right when I pulled the clutch in. It never felt like it was firing fully on both cylinders on the way home. It pulled fine, but when cruising it felt like it was going in and out of 2 cylinder fire. HELP!!!
JD

Open your head light and have a look for a relay that has wires leading from your transducers under the tank to this relay. Disconnect those wires from the relay and start her up. If it runs well then your engine stop relay is knackered. You will also find the engine needs to be stalled to stop it. If it still runs badly then chances are the ignition stator is knackered. There are guys over here in Oz that rebuild the stators as they are no longer available. Basically if the stator or the engine stop relay is finished the engine will run on one cylinder below 3000 rpm. Hope it`s the relay.

Lumpy-
Thanks for the advice-- unfortunately that was not the issue. Perhaps this thread should move to the engine section of the forum. I was seeing red yesterday when this happened--and did infact check for spark while I was sitting on the side of the road contemplating setting fire to it. Checked plug gap, condition and fuel supply. All were good. This morning, after checking the cut-off relay you'd mentioned, I pulled the plugs and stuck my finger in the hole of the vertical tower. No suction or compression. But this is good news, because in another thread I'd been battling a rattle noise in the engine at the low end of the throttle. This may have been the issue, if not, it will be rectified when I go through this engine finally. I have to admit, I wrung this bike out while riding it yesterday either in hopes of some physical manifestation of a mechanical issue, or to ease my mind that I can ride this bike and that noise I heard is just part of the way the bike runs. I suppose I'll keep the updates going when I get it apart. I could just buy that 900 engine on ebay right now, if only I had an extra 10 grand laying around. Cheers.
JD

Ok,I'll guess a holed piston! Not too bad of a problem really, sort of easy to fix.

You know, I checked the spark plug hole for any evidence of damage. I had a very good view with my video inspection scope. No hole in the piston. That was my first inclination--but no evidence of that in the cylinder. I pulled the rocker covers to make sure the valves were moving the way they should. Seems OK to me. I am excited for the prospect of tearing this engine down--It's always nice to know what has been done and done correctly. I've bought, sold and traded many bikes for having less issues than this one. I love to ride this bike and will see this through until its finished. Hopefully with the help from the good folks on this forum. Cheers.
JD

Well you can narrow it down a bit to a burnt valve or the worst,a broken rod[usually that would be indicated by horrendous noises!]. Valves are simple too. Just a bit harder to come by.

Might be worth making sure there is valve clearance on both valves too. Always best to start with the easy fixes first before getting too carried away................ask me how I know............