A few questions before i build my motor bike

I figured i would get some good advice from people who know what they are doing before i start so here they are i am using a honda gcv 160 5.5 hp lawn mower engine with a vertical shaft on a schwinn manta ray bike it seems the only two ways to get a vertical shaft to work for this are to one use a belt that twists to a spool on the tire or two use a wheel of some sort to rub directly on the rim to drive so because of how the engine needs to be mounted it seems like #2 is my only choice unless somebody has some better ideas also my clutch system was to have a mechanism to shift the engine away from the tire so that the peice no longer rubs on the rim thus the tire stomps moving any comments would be much appreciated

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my advice ( seriously consider finding a horizontal shaft motor )
not only is it going to take a bit of inginuity to get your drive to transfer from vertical to horizontal at the wheel , you also need to consider how you can solidly mount a quite torquey 5-1/2 hp motor ( i assume your thinking of mounting it over top of the rear wheel ? )

dont forget once you attach iether a belt or a chain and apply torque , the motor is going to want to twist ( and instead of twisting in the same direction as the axis of your wheel , you will be twisting perpendicular to the axis of the wheel )

personally i think your more likely to scratch a hole thru your skull tryin to figure this one out , and you,ll likely spend more money getting it to work , than a horizontal shaft engine will cost you .

BUT , it would be cool if you do get it going , probably a first of its kind , you,ll be famous

yes that is the engine just a new version the one i have looks like this
it is going to be mounted above the rear wheel the shaft will come down and a type of rubber piece will rub on the rim wall thus moving it, it will be securely mounted and the clutch will just pivot the engine so that the rubber piece no longer comes in contact with the rims sidewall i have heard people have gotten this to work the only error i may see is that the rubber piece may be able to slip a little against the side wall of the rim but i figure i have so much more power than i need i can always just hit the throttle a little harder and someday it might carry two people since it has excess power. thanks i hope i answered your questions any other input will be appreciated. oh and the bike kinda looks like this except i made some adjustments.

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does anybody else have some ideas/suggestions/changes they would make before i start
thanks, parker

Manta,
I have not seen this done but have you considered a drive shaft? There are some shaft drive bicycles out there that do not use a chain from the pedals to the rear wheel but rely on a shaft with a ring and pinion gear in a housing at the rear hub. You'd have to figure out a way to mount a centrifugal clutch between the engine and the drive shaft but it sounds as if you're intent on this project and you asked for ideas. There's one. Just be sure to consider your rotation.
Tom

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I have a friction drive setup and it takes alot of force to get the rubber wheel to clamp down on the tire to get the right traction. I dont know if a bike wheel will hold up to that kind of sideways force against the rim. You can bend a rim just by kicking it with your heel sideways......good luck.

2door do you have a picture of what you are talking about

A motor on a bike catches the attention of people and starts conversations about different MB designs. An older guy (I'm 45) was telling me that when he was young, they would use vert-shaft lawn motors on bikes with friction drives on the side of the tire. I didn't ask him detailed technical questions. I did a google search and noticed you are researching other MB forums as well. No harm in that.

The rim might seem like the best place to apply the sideways friction, but I doubt it. You could try it and if it doesn't work, then try the tire's sidewall.
Like bandito says, it takes a bit of pressure to keep a friction drive from slipping.

On my bike, I know it is about 20 lbs because I use springs. I used to have one spring on each side, but they were being stretched close to the limit. When one would break, slippage would result, rendering the motor unusable. So I measured the spring tension and modified my setup to have the same tension with 2 springs on each side. I haven't had a problem with it in 2 years.

That 20 lbs of pressure is pressing a roller (my setup is all homemade) made from hockey puck material, downward onto my skinny 10-speed tire - 27 x 1 1/4". A friction drive roller against a steel rim will have to be made of rubber. You would be getting even much less contact area than my setup, and the rubber-to-steel friction would be less than rubber-to-rubber friction. Plus, friction drives probably depend on the "give" of the pneumatic tire.

SO... I don't think there is any way you can get proper sideways friction on the rim. It would be nice - no tire wear - but I'd bet 1000 bucks it ain't practical.

That leaves the friction-on-the-tire-sidewall option. It will work, I'm sure. Fat tires probably have as much rubber on the sidewall as my skinny tires have on the tread. I would definitely only use a rubber friction roller, but I'm sure some will disagree. The wheel ain't gonna like the sideways stress, but you could probably get a few miles out of it.

People here are recommending a horizontal-shaft engine for a reason.

Where is it gona fit? that motor a little too heavy also. If u do get it working your front wheel gonna be in the air all the time. It just dosen't seem very practical .Maybe u could come up with some thing else,like maybe a chain saw motor-get a nice big one if u want -they have cent. clucthes and horiz.shafts.