mazpr

Has anyone tested one of those 50cc or 80 cc EBAY engine kits for the bikes?

Are they reliable?

I have seen a few clips on Youtube and seem pretty cool.

pengyou

I have no personal experience but in my quest for inexpensive transportation to make my life mobile I have chatted with a few folks about those. Most of them are made in China now so I chatted with people who sell them...they say they are good motors but not very durable. My Chinese friends have some of them - not sure if they are the same quality or not - but when they work, they work very well...but often need maintenance. When I chat with them I am often reminded of the time in the early 70's when my brother had his Fiat station wagon. It was a blast to drive and ride in but 'Tony often got his share of income from my brother. One thing to consider is that some places have less lenient rules about gasoline powered than they do about electric powered - they may not be allowed in places where you can ride an ebike so you need to check that out also.

mike-on-da-bike

those little motorised scooter bloody fly fast man but the cops wont like ya cause of the speed and noise,they go real fast and up hills i wanted to get one but like i said cops hate em,guys near me race em up the highway all the time lol.

jerryt

Heres a link to a forum for that kind of motored bike

https://motoredbikes.com/index.php

(Ronin)

I had one....complete crap!
Everything except the cheap cast engine casing rusted,the choke never would work right,and the clutch was just horrible and you could not pedal the bike with the engine off,just too much drag.The cheap carb would flood and puke when you ran it full throttle for too long,not to mention that the 80cc chineese engine had less power than a 33cc Honda or subaru/robin..
Even if you got one for 100$,you'd still be getting ripped off
save your money and go with a quality kit like one of these:https://www.staton-inc.com/Results1.asp?Category=30

Doug5150

The frame-mount engines are all Chinese-made and VERY cheap, it's common for certain pieces to break and there's other common problems as well, but you can avoid them if you read about them online ahead of time. Reading up on motoredbikes.com can help with avoiding a lot of problems.

Most of the Chinese engines are 2-cycles, but there are some Chinese 4-cycles coming in now, and you can get a 4-cycle from other brands as well.

The better engines (Tanaka, Robin-Subaru, Honda, Tecumseh and Mitsubishi) will not have parts breaking at all, they are well-engineered and are very reliable for a long time if they're maintained properly.
-----

I would warn that (having only one drive speed) mine doesn't climb hills very well at all--and reading moped reviews online, mopeds that have only a single drive speed get the same kinds of complaints. Mopeds that use 2- or 3-speed transmissions don't have this hill problem and while there are some pretty cheap Chinese motorcycle (Lifan) engine/transmission setups available, there's no easy way to bolt them onto a regular bicycle frame.
~

BroadwayJoe

Golden Eagle does a nice belt drive system IMO with modern, reliable engines in 2 & 4 stroke flavors. There's also a chain drive company using same choice of engines.

If I were looking into ICE kits, I'd consider one of these.

https://bikeengines.com/

Staton uses chain drive:

https://www.staton-inc.com/Results1.asp?Category=30

These "eBay kits" are wannabe Whizzer clones. Look cool but probably not gonna last over the long haul.

mazpr

Thanks for the info and links.

I saw a few closeups of many of those chinese engines and my main concern was on the mounts.

Many looked very primitive and just seemed like a quick fix to make it work. I got a few Nitro powered R/C cars so when I saw the kits they really seem cool to have.

I will check he many links provided, once again thanks for the info.

Leisesturm

The Staton site rocks. I second it highly. Weeks ago I mentioned combining gas and electric power in one vehicle to get a hybrid of sorts. The quality issue is addressed by using gas engines by Honda, Subaru or the like, as was mentioned but hanging all the bits where they can get power to the wheels (or cranks!) gets to be a bit much and the clutches, manual or centrifugal in this power range are also or low quality, so how about this: a small generator (50cc - 100cc) that is connected to the battery pack and can either power the motor and/or trickle charge the battery pack. Hooking up the electrical connections so it works as hoped is one matter, realizing that a small generator also has a perfectly good electric motor inside and therefore the hybrid would have TWO DC motors although only one would be connected to the drive system is making me wonder about redundancy issues and weight. Still, that is how diesel locomotives work and some of the newer automobile hybrids are designed this way. Hmmmm.

H

Sianelle 

Aaaaarrrrgh! What did you post that link for? I've lost a week already over on the Dark Side Ooooing and Ahhhhing at Motored-bicycles.

Endless_BiGH

go electric!

less issues with police, better for the environment, cheaper (no need to buy gas) but has a higher capital cost. its also quiet and u won't smell like petrol!

Leisesturm

You are mostly right of course but there are real problems with range in an all electric system, batteries aren't exactly great for the environment are not cheap and you have to throw them out every couple of hundred discharge cycles! So given a choice between all electric, hybrid gas/electric and fully gas powered, I'd explore a hybrid design first, gas next and all electric dead last.

H

BroadwayJoe

Those little Subaru/Honda 4 strokes get pretty good mpg on bikes. +100mpg easy. At least that's easier on oil reserves than a 20mpg truck/car. Gotta walk before you can run...

Abneycat

Well, the battery doesn't necessarily have to be written off as environmental waste. SLA and NiCad are environmental nightmares if not disposed of properly, NiMH and Lithium have a less toxic nature. There's no need to put any of these batteries out in a landfill though, recycling programs are improving.

As for how efficient the recycling process is, it varies from battery to battery. From what I understand these recycling facilities simply incinerate the plastic casings and insulation in order to get at the content of the battery, so thats certainly lost. The amount of material that can be put back to use so far as the battery itself can be *very* good though, NiCad's and NiMH can be 99.95% recycled (not counting those incinerated casings)

Its certainly not without drawbacks: the current process of incineration is a pretty high energy loss process, and although the fumes are neutralized so they don't end up floating around in the air, but its still a use of fuel and a loss of plastic. Depending on the yield of usable material from the battery, it might not even be worth doing.

NiMH is proven to get a very good yield, as is NiCad, but NiCad's future is diminishing which leads me to worry about what they'll do with all the Cadmium once no one wants it anymore.

SLA has always been pretty successfully recycled, most car batteries end up going this way.

Lithiums unfortunately apparently are recyclable, but the amount of material regained can be pretty low. I'm really starting to like NiMH actually. Not as light as Lithium, but these batteries last a really long time and have really good recycling/disposal profiles.

Overall, if you're using proper disposal techniques, batteries don't have to be an environmental nightmare.

As for the range/recharge, electric certainly hasn't got a lot of edge on gas, no doubt. I think a gas/electric would be pretty neat, it'd be interesting at least. With the electric battery being used as they are in hybrids, you could probably get away with a lighter battery to offset some of the weight of having 2 drive systems.

I'm personally not into gas, but thats because i'm a hybrid-cyclist, and like to enjoy the ride. I just find that gas engines are disruptive to the cycling charm, whereas the electric hums along and only needs to be thought about after the ride when you need to charge.

Endless_BiGH

one of the reasons i went for lifepo4 batteries is their cycle life is in the 1000s rather than the 100s.

and its also a matter of urgency. Air pollution is much more a serious problem with the greenhouse effect and global warming, rather than soil pollution.

Sianelle 

What is a Lifepo4 battery? Please tell me more

Abneycat

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium...sphate_battery

pengyou

Is the Dewalt battery a Lifepo4?

Abneycat

DeWalt systems are A123's.

https://peswiki.com/index.php/Directory:A123_Systems

I don't know much about the A123's personally though. I do know that they can be recharged extremely fast, and that they're being used in some prototype EV applications, as well as power tools. The Killacycle is powered by A123's, which speaks for their power.

They sound like good batteries.

BroadwayJoe

I've built a couple packs with A123 Systems developer kits. They're extreme cells - good for +100A if tabs are welded. Can also be recharged in very short time if desired. I bulk charge my cells at 3A so it's only about 30-45 min for empty 2.3Ah pack. With careful monitoring they can be bulk charged at 3x that rate with slight decrease in cycle life. That would be about 10-15 min. Very impressive!

No balance issues after about 100 cycles but I was careful to assemble them as evenly charged as possible. Trouble with developer kits is you're on your own with regard to a charger and BMS. I'm constantly tinkering with my packs and I'll probably never leave 'em and forget 'em but my system does have several safeguards. The cells are very stable though and I've pushed 'em hard with my 750W scooter. They're almost a joke to use on eBikes except for 5 series motor/controllers. They can really deliver stable current right up until they're depleted - then you must STOP.

It would be cheaper and easier to buy Dewalt packs and use the supplied charger. But you would need to bypass the BMS for discharge since Dewalt tools draw their current through the BMS. Trouble is, you only have 2.3AH (comparable to 4AH SLA) per pack. They're light though so easy to carry more than one pack.

jerryt

Sianelle wrote
Its nice to have a choice don't you think?
In my present circumstance, my electric is just fine whereas an ICE worked very well for me in my youth when I traveled further and faster. Wish I had a nice rack mounted GEBE back then!! On the other hand, maybe I'll add one to my little stable of vehicles just for more fun.

stokell

Oops, did I somehow fall into the fifth dimension? This is the Electric bike forum. You know, the ones that are cleaner and quieter.

Sianelle 

Yes you're in the right forum I think the problem lies in the lack of a place to discuss motorized bicycles. If there is enough demand I'll see if it's possible to have a forum exclusively for the petrol heads.

JeanCoutu

The 1914 Aerothurst

From the article: "Apparently for when pedaling up that hill was just a little too hard you could kick on the (dangerously exposed but friggen sweet) propeller afterburner thing and rocket up. Now and days this could be done with a small electric engine, and save you the trouble of fueling the thing, but for being designed in the early 1900’s it’s not half bad."

jerryt

Someone will be attaching another chain to drive the propeller when you run out of petrol or electricity, a gimbol to swivel the propeller into an aerogyro position, etc, etc. Sianelle we need some illustrations!!