First build shopping list.. what have I forgotten?

Just trying to total up build costs before I get in too deep lol. I've made a shopping list for my first build, not sure it's complete. Would love your thoughts on what else I might need to add!
I'm starting with a pretty reasonable roadgoing mountainbike. I'd like to keep as much of it's functionality as a bicycle as possible, as I'll be hitting that kill switch often (It'll be illegal to ride on public roads).
Here's a quick pic of my bike loaded up for a trip to the beach (I've added more cargo space now with front lowrider panniers), this is 70 miles from home.. took me 28 hours to get home against a headwind, including needing a couple of meals and a sleep halfway lol. List follows under pic

Okay so here's the parts I THINK I need to get motoring:

Transformercycles : 69.7cc 2-stroke slant-head motor kit with 8mm studs and NT Speed carb (£200)

Torque wrench (3/8") 10-80NM range (£24)
aftermarket fuel filter (about £5.00)
aftermarket fuel tap (under £10)
Copper Kote for head gasket (£?)
JB Weld or equivalent U.K. product (£?)
Shrink tube 6mm diameter
High temperature silicon hose LONG like on Fabian's bike (£? U.K. supplier?)

U.S.A stuff:
SBP : Head Stud kit M8-1.0 ($10)
SBP : Engine Hardware kit ($10)
SBP : 2 Stroke HD Shifter kit ($200)
SBP : engine sound dampeners ($14)
SBP : Front engine mount large ($15)
SBP : Silicon tube 6" ($7)
SBP : NGK Iridium BPR7HIX or NGK BPR6HIX ($7)
SBP : Carb O-ring and Exhaust gasket ($5)
SBP : Head Gasket 8mm ($5)
Kingsmotorbikes.com : 2.5L Rear gas tank ($25) MAYBE
Kingsmotorbikes.com : centre kickstand ($25)
JNMotors : Jaguar CDI ($75)
JNMotors : HP Walbro Carb Kit +RSE Reed Valve Kit (Stage 1 or 2????) ($190) to fit when I ...
get it professionally ported for best power in mid range revs. (£??)

Make and bolt on some extra cooling fins to the cylinder head and insert silicone sound dampening blocks between all lower fins.
Make a larger chain guard for the jackshaft kit, and one for the left hand side for enhanced trouser safety lol.
Correct the transfer ports according to instructions on dragonfly75.com, using JB weld or equivalent U.K. product.
Make a rain/splash protector for the air filter.

Wing mirror (£10)
Motorcycle helmet (£50-£60)
Wide tyre liners (£?)
FSA Pig Headset (£10)
Probably fit my spare Marzocchi suspension fork too.
Schwalbe Big Apple LiteSkin Kevlar Guard Folding Tyre (£50 pair)


(£365 + a few items not yet priced-up. for local parts)
($588 + shipping. for the U.S.A. parts)
($588 = £355)
(£365 + £363 = £728 + shipping from U.S.A.)


Petroleum-based oil, and castor oil to break in. (£?)
High quality synthetic oil to run.

Nice new rear wheel (<£100) optional.
Schwalbe Ice Spiker Wired Tyre (£70 pair)

I'll try to get all the locally available stuff first so I can check sizes etc before ordering U.S.A. stuff.
It's a bloody expensive hobby this isn't it? hahaha

Anything else you think I need? Anything on here I don't need or is mismatched to the other parts?

 

[FurryOnTheInside]

When dealing with this hobby/transport, the first thing you come to realise is that the very second your preferred options deviate from what's shown on a vendors website, life become a nightmare of impossible difficulty, no matter how much common sense you try and bring forward to the discussion.

The same difficulty applied to the Sick Bike Parts shift kit, which is supplied without chain tensioners and only now (2 years down the track) has an optional set of chain tensioners become available. Prior to this new option i had to spend time messing around designing my own chain tensioners which proved to solve all of the (massively annoying) chain tension issues during the early days of operating my bike with the shift kit, even though the shift kit in itself was a fantastic product.
There were times when i was on my knees begging Sick Bike Parts to design chain tensioners for their shift kit, but my words fell on deaf ears. Fortunately the chain tensioners designed by Sick Bike Parts are far superior to my own designs, hence i have installed them on my bike.

In the same context, i have spent over a year trying, or better said, begging Rock Solid Engines to design and manufacture a thermal isolation spacer for the reed valve diaphragm adapter kit, because issues showing up in the real world of long haul every day operation were not showing up on the engine dyno with relatively short run times.

I can say the same of the Jaguar CDI which is a terrific product for improving power and extending the life of 2-stroke Chinese bicycle engines, but it annoyingly lacks an easily adjustable external user interface.

Most of my "preferred options" are actually essential parts that are inexplicably missing from various kits.
The Sick Bike Parts shifter kit for example, missing it's chain tensioners. The "optional" chain tensioners are not even listed anywhere on their website so idk how they expect to sell them. I was already expecting I'd have to make my own at some point by adapting mountainbike parts. Are they only needed for correcting chain tension as the chain wears (which is possible to do, though difficult, through repositioning of the motor mount), or are they needed all the time to compensate for eccentric sprockets?
The RSE walbro crab + reed valve kit, available through JNM, missing it's thermal isolation spacer. The "optional" t.i.s. is not even listed anywhere on their website so idk how they expect to sell them either. What planet are these people living on? lol.

Jaguar.. poor guy he's obviously so used to having to defend his ideas, it's very hard for the layman without advanced electronics and engineering knowledge to understand what mods he's recommending. I've spent a month reading his posts and a week reading his website and found a few gems hidden between the graphs and "technical babble". I think I might know what to DO with his CDI now; but my head feel like it's been in a microwave.
His transfer port filling(reshaping) mod is soo simple it made me laugh. A page of justifying in technical language because he gets so much s*** from naysayers, another page explaining how the naysayers give him a horrible time about it, and about three clear sentences of how to do the mod. It's something I need to do right at the start when I take the motor out of the box it was delivered in, it's just a very simple way to make the motor much better and as straightforward and easy for the beginner as swapping out the studs, and I can do it at the same time.

 

[FurryOnTheInside]

The different "Mk" specifications listed on the JN Motors website relate to different levels of component parts and also different diaphragm carburettor sizes. You will have to decide which level of componentry suits your needs and desired outcomes.

A thermal isolation spacer needs to be made out of a high temperature engineering plastic; to resist deformation at high temperatures (to prevent air leaks), because it is under compressive stress.
From conversation with Tony at Rock Solid Engines he made mention that the plastic used in his thermal isolation spacer is made from a high temperature aerospace engineering specification with thermally stable properties - plastic definitely isn't plastic.

Would it actually kill them to say which kit suits which needs and desired outcomes? How am I as a customer supposed to know which kit I need? The numbers 1, 2 and 3 really aren't much help as a description of the differences between one kit and the next!

Well that's very nice for Tony lmao. He needs to make sure his U.S.A. distributor has these thermal isolation spacers for sale on their website, or included in the carb+reed kits with the longer mounting bolts so that people don't try his product and find it doesn't do what they bought it for.

 

[FurryOnTheInside]

Yes, it is that easy - makes you wonder why people persist with float style carburettors when there is clearly a much better option for a 2-stroke engine, considering 2-stroke engines are very susceptible to changes in atmospheric conditions; requiring jetting changes to maintain optimal carburation; sometimes on a daily basis.

Well they come included in the basic motor kits, so one might assume they are meant to go on there; but I wouldn't know about why people keep on with them after modding various other things, it seems like it should be one of the first changes to make, from what I've read. Makes me wonder if I should get a motor kit at all or just try to find a seperate motor.

You have placed your words well; being massively over optimistic, some might call it delusional and some might more appropriately call it masochism

Well I just read the sales blurb that says "Even Britney Spears could fit this [...] complete kit [...] in fifteen minutes!" but I never actually believed it, otherwise I would have spent £200 on the kit and not joined this forum, and ended up stranded with no spokes in my rear wheel. I knew it was all lies!

All I'm trying to do by reading this forum is save myself repeating everyone else's months/years of trial and error and buying the wrong parts, and ruining the motor by overstressing it. I think if people are prepared to share their experiences and lessons learned then I'd be a fool to ignore their advice.
I'm trying to get a good list of bookmarked pages and collate the essential info, so that I can motorise one bicycle and have it actually work, both uphill and down and on level ground, in all seasons, without making the worst unbearable noise and vibrating my arms off and it's nuts off, and not have it break down early and leave me stranded on some lonely moor.
I don't want to go super-fast, I don't want to set any records, I just want a bike that works. I'm certain that it's possible to make a kit that bolts right onto a bicycle right out of the boxes; but the manufacturers always have to make everything wrong!

 

[FurryOnTheInside]

walbro carb cable mounts sell for 75 cents currently and velocity stacks are 15 dollars plus a 30 dollar walbro new. you dont need reeds or gears. those can be added later w no changes needed correct

I read the thread on that, didn't sound like you were having fun! Photos I need photos! lol I really believe I need gears, it's a mountainbike.

 

[FurryOnTheInside]

I'd seriously consider giving it a go building the carb and reed setup from separate parts if there was the info/tutorial available for the average amateur to follow, and if the parts needed to build it turned out to be readily available. I really don't know which carb or reed valve I would need to get, or how to fit it correctly. When I read "deffinatly not for begginers. an amateur would have quite by now." I said okay, that's advising me to just go for the kit then.
I'm happy to get a kit to add gears, or a kit to replace the unsuitable carb that comes with the motors. I'm happy to do little easy "kitchen table" mods like the transfer port correction, as long as I know about it in advance. I just don't like the idea of constantly finding stumbling blocks along the way that seem to have been placed there by manufacturers to make their product harder to use or less useful to the customer. "Oh FFS the bolts aren't long enough" "Oh FFS there's no spacer" I got so tired of saying that when I was building mountainbike-BMX hybrids, and they're simple compared to these motorised bikes.

 

[Fabian]

I just don't like the idea of constantly finding stumbling blocks along the way that seem to have been placed there by manufacturers to make their product harder to use or less useful to the customer. "Oh FFS the bolts aren't long enough" "Oh FFS there's no spacer".

That is the most succinct description of this hobby/transport.
Just about all the "purchased" components on my bike have required reengineering to make them properly functional or reliable. The last set of components purchased from a vendor required a set of spacers because my engine is fitted with 6mm head studs instead of the more common 8mm head studs. Due to this design difference i needed the vendor to make a set of spacers which needed to function with a double action of being dowel pins; keying into the cylinder head stud bores, to prevent the vendors cylinder head from misaligninging on the cylinder body.

I sent a detailed explanation of the spacer specifications, which in reality was a very simple part to manufacture and a plainly common sense concept to grasp.
The first set of spacers was manufactured too short, but with the correct OD and ID specifications. The second set of spacers was manufactured with an OD that was too large.
After that the vendor basically told me that it was all too hard, despite having detailed instructions on the requirements of the spacer dimensions.

In the end i had to get a tool maker to manufacture up the spacers, which meant that i had to pay for a set of spacers "3" times over, at my expense.
Frustratingly the vendors billet cylinder head (which is a terrific product) has a price tag of around $100, yet the total cost of the spacers (when it was all said and done) cost me in excess of $200

"Oh FFS the bolts aren't long enough" "Oh FFS there's no spacer"

That's life when playing in the sandbox of motorized bicycles

 

[Fabian]

The Sick Bike Parts chain tensioners should be available sometime in October or early November, and yes, they are (in my opinion) an essential item for the shift kit, or at very least the right hand side chain tensioner.

The thermal isolation spacer from Rock Solid Engines is not currently a listed part on their website, so JN Motors does not even know that it exists. You have to contact Tony via email to have this part shipped out to you as an accessory item.

 

[Fabian]

All I'm trying to do by reading this forum is save myself repeating everyone else's months/years of trial and error and buying the wrong parts, and ruining the motor by overstressing it. I think if people are prepared to share their experiences and lessons learned then I'd be a fool to ignore their advice.

All i can say is that i wished to God that i could have found this site before i started down the road of motorized bicycles. It would have saved me a huge amount of heartache.
For that reason i have created a thread on the other forum carefully listing all of the parts and all of the details on where to purchase components to make a motorized bicycle operate with proper functionality and acceptable reliability for long haul use.

 

[Fabian]

The "optional" chain tensioners are not even listed anywhere on their website so idk how they expect to sell them. I was already expecting I'd have to make my own at some point by adapting mountainbike parts. Are they only needed for correcting chain tension as the chain wears (which is possible to do, though difficult, through repositioning of the motor mount), or are they needed all the time to compensate for eccentric sprockets?

The chain tensioners are needed for both reasons. The left hand side chain tensioner is needed because the Chinese made 10 tooth engine sprocket is machined acentric hence the chain will be tight as a drum at one point in the sprockets rotation and looser than a prostitutes front door at another point in it's rotation.

The right hand side chain tensioner is essential because chain stretch will cause the chain to become loose in fairly short time if traveling on unpaved surfaces; with dirt from the front tyre being thrown onto the exposed chain, accelerating what would be normal wear. I have had the chain stretch from 25% wear to 80% in 3 hours of riding when on a bicycle trail consisting of a mixture of sand/fine stones and cement powder. In the summer months the bike path which is normally a hard surface crust throws up dust from the front wheel, sand blasting the right hand side chain causing ridiculous chain stretch, which would have you adjusting the chain tension every 15 minutes, if it were not for a chain tensioner.

 

[FurryOnTheInside]

Well that's the price of being a pioneer. Well, no, it's the price of doing something new, you're only a pioneer if you map your route and make the effort to publish easily understandable information so others can follow you more directly, without having to go through the same trial and error process, heartache, frustration, etc.. Thanks Fabian I will go and have a proper read through your thread, then keep reading your threads everywhere.
I wish I'd found that thread a month ago.

Okay sounds like they are essential on both sides then, as adjusting the motor mounts (though fairly easily done out on the trail) is not something I could put up with doing frequently.