This one is for the folks out there who’ve always dreamed of pulling their Ducati engines and personally rebuilding them by hand. For the past month and a half an amazing thread has been going on over at the Ducati Monster.Org website. A fellow who goes by the handle de5m0mike decided to pull his Monster’s engine with around 4 thousand miles on it in order to clean it up and paint it. While he had it apart he ended up porting the engine a bit and generally tightening down the tolerances.

What makes this thread so engaging imho is that de5m0mike didn’t seem to know a whole heck of a lot before pulling his engine apart. Instead he learned as he went, at times leaning on a Haynes manual and the Ducati Monster forum for advice. After almost six weeks of trail and error, pain and sweet and sheer perseverance he prevailed. Running engine and all. You gotta give a fellow like that some serious mad props. I mean at some point haven’t we all thought to ourselves wouldn’t it be fun to rebuild my engine? This dude actually did it.

There’s also a thread over on Speedzilla about the project if you’re interested in a few other thoughts on the matter. Both threads are fantastic reads and well worth the time to check them out. I highly recommend them.