Slower with shift kit

GoldenMotor.com

Sidewinder Jerry

Well-Known Member
Dec 19, 2011
2,081
1,063
113
62
Rockwood, TN
Hope to make an on board video at least by Thursday. This snow is suppose to stop today and the roads should be cleared up somewhat by Thursday. Since my bike autoshifts it will upshift or downshift to the most efficient gear. This video will just be a on board one. Still you'll be able to hear the bike as it shifts gears.
 

Huffydavidson

STREETRACER/MANUFACTURER
Jan 29, 2012
1,076
4
38
st.louis,mo.
in the beginning I had the same problem my chain would not go on it was too tight so I had a half link in fabricated my own chain tensioner who sing the chain up and ready to change tensioner work with the spring no problem went away and now I'm running way over 47 miles an hour .then I did the same thing on the right side with the chain ring no more jack in the motor up anymore either every 2 months or so I check it make sure I don't have to shorten a chain .
 

Sidewinder Jerry

Well-Known Member
Dec 19, 2011
2,081
1,063
113
62
Rockwood, TN
Here is another factor I noticed my bike tends to run a little slower in very cold weather. I know its because of the cold air entering the carburetor.
 

biknut

Well-Known Member
Sep 28, 2010
6,653
475
83
Dallas
I'm totally underwelmed by a shift kits performance. Both of my bikes with do 40 mph with a 36T sprocket. I reduced Stunners pedal side gearing to the point that with a combination of hard clutch / hard pedal action, I can get off the line with respectable zoom.

And even though I weigh 220 my bike does real well on hills too. A hill has to be pretty steep, and long to get me below 25.

IMO a shift kit is a waste of time on a china girl.
 

Sidewinder Jerry

Well-Known Member
Dec 19, 2011
2,081
1,063
113
62
Rockwood, TN
Just made a video WiFi being slow today. All I've got is a 3G phone. Uploading to YouTube then to the site here. I weigh 250 lbs and we've got lots of steep hills here. It was snowing and the roads were iced up some.
 

BrandonG

New Member
Oct 31, 2012
40
1
0
Gainesville
It's a commonplace impression, but if ya ponder it for a mo it makes sense why you'd not gain any top speed - if the final (top) gear ratio is the same as a single, where would the "extra" power come from? If it isn't either the single speed is over/under geared or the shifter bike is*... so being able to shift or not to your top speed/gear makes no difference at all except one critical detail...

...that ol' underdog, acceleration.
Right, but my 44t single gear before is very close to 4th gear now. So 5th 6th 7th and 8th all are like running less than a 44t sprocket. So I should have better acceleration because of 1st-4th and better top end in 5th and above. I have great acceleration, but it wont even get up to 35 like it did before.

Im missing something thats robbing power and its driving me crazy

Chains arent too tight. The right side fell off once last week. So Im just about as loose as I can go. And left side is the same.
 

biknut

Well-Known Member
Sep 28, 2010
6,653
475
83
Dallas
Jerry, I can see a lot of love and craftsmanship in your bike. It's a nice build. You deserve a lot of credit for building such a nice bike.

But watching that video was like seeing little slave children forced to work in a gold mine. Now that you've gotten your bike perfected you should sell that that thing to an old lady, and get one of these sexy china girl models. This is my little 48cc Flying Horse with a tallish 40T sprocket. 40T as in single speed. With a stock 44T this bike would have climbed any of your hills faster than your bike.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ATmwBSd7aCA
 

Sidewinder Jerry

Well-Known Member
Dec 19, 2011
2,081
1,063
113
62
Rockwood, TN
Your video not available on mobile. Plan to add electric assist to front hub in near future. My engine is 33 cc ,1.6 HP. Tennessee's limit is 50 cc , 2 HP. By adding a 350 watt front hub motor I'll stay within my states HP limit. I plan to set the bike up so that when I'm using gas only it charges the battery.

You can't really tell from the video but those hills are really steep. I've seen larger engine motorized bikes that couldn't make it up them. Still I was able to do at least 8 mph up them. The roads also had ice on them. Will be getting my nephew to film me soon then you'll see how very steep these hills are. Also I'm 6'2" and weigh 250 lbs.

All in all the bike autoshifted great both up and down.
 
Last edited:

biknut

Well-Known Member
Sep 28, 2010
6,653
475
83
Dallas
Jerry, if anybody can do it you probably can. It looks like you know what you're doing.
 

Sidewinder Jerry

Well-Known Member
Dec 19, 2011
2,081
1,063
113
62
Rockwood, TN
Thanks Biknut, been checking out your videos. Haven't been in Dallas since the late 70's. Hope to be getting helmet cam soon. As well as better stuff to do videos with.

I'm building in such a way that my bike is completely legal here in Tennessee. I get along well with my local PD and want to keep it that way. There's some very beautiful places here and great videos could be made.
 

biknut

Well-Known Member
Sep 28, 2010
6,653
475
83
Dallas
Thanks Biknut, been checking out your videos. Haven't been in Dallas since the late 70's. Hope to be getting helmet cam soon. As well as better stuff to do videos with.

I'm building in such a way that my bike is completely legal here in Tennessee. I get along well with my local PD and want to keep it that way. There's some very beautiful places here and great videos could be made.
I understand about staying within the law with your motor bicycle. It's an issue for a lot of us in many states. It's funny, a shift kit in Taxas would make you illegal, but probably not enforced.
 

Sidewinder Jerry

Well-Known Member
Dec 19, 2011
2,081
1,063
113
62
Rockwood, TN
That's what inspired me to build my current setup. Tennessee has an automatic transmission requirement. I used to run three chainrings up front. I had to manually shift them and the rear seven shifted automatically. My state doesn't say you can't shift gears. However I didn't want to leave it up to a judge to decide if manually shifting gears means its not automatic. Now it truly is fully automatic.

This is my setup 18.75 gearbox, GB to shiftkit18-44, SK to freewheel 34-(34, 28, 24, 20, 16). States like Florida and South Carolina state the operator can't shift gears after the primary drive is engaged. In my setup the operator isn't shifting gears its being done automatically. This setup will make shiftkits legal in many places they'd otherwise be illegal.
 

mew905

New Member
Sep 24, 2012
647
9
0
Moose Jaw
a suggestion to the OP: how high do you rev? the peak power is around 6500 RPM for a 66cc (if I remember correctly), and just as with a car, shifting to keep within that powerband is key to speed, HP tends to drop off pretty steeply after peak so shifting just after that RPM you may see more speed. My bike does 40mph with a 36T, and I plan on getting a shift kit for launches and more speed (I'm tuning for high RPM power, because I have gears, a single speed you want medium to low end power, but as broad as you can). a dremel and some JB weld can help, but since you have a shift kit, reeds for the entire RPM band, and a short(ish) expansion pipe (I imagine the banana one would do just fine) as well as tall porting you should see your powerband lean more to the high end, launches will suffer though, but from what I understand, your average bike casette's lowest gear is roughly equal to a 56T sprocket, giving you around 50% more torque minus losses anyway). Also a jag CDI (or build one yourself) to help with the spark. looks like you've already shaved/lapped the head so you're pretty much already at the limit for what you can do for compression for free.
 

BrandonG

New Member
Oct 31, 2012
40
1
0
Gainesville
Top speed is 5th gear at 34 mph and 6400 rpm, right around peak power. Shifting to 6th at 34 mph makes rpms at 5700 and slowly decelerating. I havent smoothed the ports but thinking about it. First I wanted to try and fix whatever is stopping me from getting back to where I was with the 44t. I moved the c clip 1 notch richer and that helped my top speed by maybe 1 or 2. gonna try perfecting the tune
 

Ghost0

New Member
Mar 7, 2008
763
1
0
Bellingham, WA
Great conversation guys and at least every bit of important information has been touched on. It is quite true that there are losses with an additional drive train above the standard single speed, I believe 8% a little exaggerated but 5% I will buy. Once you start hitting top speed every bit of resistance matters, wind and friction are pretty close to equal at that point. As was noted a 44 tooth single drive is approximately equal to 4th gear using a shift kit. The question being posed is why with 3 gears taller to go will the bike not go any faster? The answer is simply horse power. At 4th or 5th gear you have reached a combination of friction and wind resistance that will no longer allow you to go any faster (terminal velocity). The only solution to this are to reduce wind resistance, friction resistance or increase horse power. Since I believe, as one poster stated, the pros far outweigh the cons having the ability to alter your gearing that simply adding a bit of horse power to get more top speed is the best solution. Simply adding a tuned pipe and correctly tuning the carb has got me over 40 mph which is all I need to keep up with traffic on most 35 mph roads. I can't quite out accelerate a car but certainly don't hold up any traffic accelerating from a stop light.
 

Sidewinder Jerry

Well-Known Member
Dec 19, 2011
2,081
1,063
113
62
Rockwood, TN
Ghost0 good explanation. We've got hills here in Tennessee one could coast to over 40 mph. There those who only build downhill racers. On most drag strips those vehicles only have two forward gears. In developing the autoshift system on my bike I found too many gears to be a problem. That's why I only use 5 now 16-34 on a custom built freewheel driven by a single 34 chainring. One can use a single 34 chainring and an 8 speed 11-34 freewheel or cassette and get the same ratio range as a 21 speed. (28,34,44)-(7 speed 14-28). All 21 speeds are really just 11-13 speeds the other 8-10 gears are redundant ones.

The 8 speed setup works best like this: (1,2 uphill); (3,4,5,6 level ground); (7,8 downhill).
 
Last edited:

Wild Bill

New Member
Jan 29, 2013
478
5
0
Camarillo So. Cal.
Im hitting just over 40 mph on a good day with a shift kit but its taken a lot of tuning to get there and the closer to forty I got the harder it was to find gains. I am running the 9 tooth sprocket on the jack shaft output and have had the best results with that gearing on both climbing and top end speed. I have tried both the 10t and 11t with a few different setups but the 9t has always been best.

I see some people saying that 7th & 8th gears are more for downhill but my bike pulls 7th on flat ground pretty well sometimes even 8th but it wasnt until I made several motor changes such as Hi comp head and Jag ignition that it would pull 7th or 8th. but the 9t sprocket also helps to pull those gears. I dont have a tach yet so I have no idea about rpms thru all this.

I seem to have hit a speed barrier at 40 mph, I have tried a few things and I am running out of other things to try unless I do something drastic. I hit 44 mph a couple days ago but that was a tail wind of about 7-8 mph.
 
Last edited: