Has anyone tried

[tsmra]

to mount the engine bassakwards and run straight to a free wheel sprocket on the crank to cut out the jack shaft idea?

 

[captainrichhill]

That will make the engine turn the wrong way. You would need a reversing gear system. That would hardly be worth it.

 

[Clotho]

This has been brought up before. To my knowledge no-one has built one like this yet.

http://motorbicycling.com/f4/run-reverse-4202.html

 

[camlifter]

if you replaced the drive sprokets with meshed gears it would turn the right way, but you would still need some type of shaft for the second gear anyway.

 

[tsmra]

What.....you mean I can't just run the chain in a figure 8???? Just kidding. Wasn't really thinking straight when I ask this question. Hope I don’t get tagged as a troll for this. Although the thread that Clotho refers to seems interesting.
It looks like these motors don’t have all that much torque and my region has plenty of hills. Just trying to get around buying a shift kit. This will be my first kit and I’m trying to make it practical to get as much use out of it as possible
Thank you for the help.