A Kit that will last atleast a year

[stratplyr]

I am living in a foreign country and my current mode of transportation is a bicycle. I want to put an engine on it, buying a full fledged motorcycle wont be cost effective for me as i'll be heading back within a year and a half. A motored bicycle would be perfect. I've built a kit for fun before but this time i need a little bit of reliability. I don't mind doing regular maintenance but will not have access to parts for a immediately. I don't mind bringing with me an extra engine along with a kit just to be safe or bringing extra parts with me. What are the must haves? conditions are hot and dusty here, what kind of filters will i need? Which engine kit is the most reliable?

I would like to keep my budget around $250

 

[dchevygod]

You're asking too much for too little I think. The only reliable motors I know of will cost $250+ and then you need a drive unit. You said its dry where your going so I suggest that you find a used friction drive unit in good shape and get either this motor G43L if it has a 78 mm clutch. Or this one GP290 if it has the 54mm clutch drum. Then you need fuel tank and throttle,

Reliability is not cheap. I'd use the GEBE kit without engine and choose one of those motors and leave it stock for best reliability.

 

[Fabian]

A motored bicycle would be perfect. [I...] but this time i need a little bit of reliability. I would like to keep my budget around $250

You have "ZERO" possibility of achieving that goal with $250; absolutely zero chance of achieving that goal with $250
Your absolute minimum amount to achieve reasonable reliability would be $600, but $1,000 (not including the bike) would be a better budget to work with, "and", you are going to need to hand fabricate parts to suit your bike, to ensure mechanical stability of the drive train.

 

[Fabian]

Reliability is not cheap.

I agree. 100%
Achieving reliability of my motorized bicycle has nearly sent me bankrupt, and taken 2 years of pain and heartache to achieve, and cost me two relationships in the process.

 

[Sidewinder Jerry]

You get what you're willing to pay for.

 

[Fabian]

A very salient point.
The two unfortunate men who took my expunged options have paid a far greater price for their choices than i was prepared to pay.

My motorized bicycle is still giving "faithful" service, and the only whining i hear comes from the clutch gears.

 

[Deleted member 12676]

what is not reliable on the stock Grubee engine:
stator coil and CDI
engine bearings
crankshaft seals
carburetor
and you have to locktite every nut/bolt because the engine vibrates so much (so you need to take the gearbox apart and drill bigger holes in the flywheels to balance the engine).
If you are handy with tools you can fix its reliability problems for about the same cost of the engine.
That's what I did with mine when I lived in Ecuador. After fixing it up it was fast, reliable, and very fun.

 

[butre]

a note about the carb, if it works for you it will continue to work. it's just often leaky thanks to poor quality control and doesn't have any really usable adjustments

 

[KCvale]

what is not reliable on the stock Grubee engine:
stator coil and CDI
engine bearings
crankshaft seals
carburetor
and you have to locktite every nut/bolt because the engine vibrates so much (so you need to take the gearbox apart and drill bigger holes in the flywheels to balance the engine).
If you are handy with tools you can fix its reliability problems for about the same cost of the engine.
That's what I did with mine when I lived in Ecuador. After fixing it up it was fast, reliable, and very fun.

I have had the exact opposite experience with the Yuan Dong factory engines China Gas packages that are currently $173 delivered anywhere in the US and they come with assembly required.

Just looking at the quality of the cast work and bearings as you assemble is a nice piece of mind.

I have over 50 local builds with that factories engines spanning 3 years and their improvements along the way and not a single one has ever had an engine bearing or seal issue even after 2 years and thousands of miles out of the box on a good bike.

In short I build quality custom MB's for a living and that's what I use.

 

[Fabian]

Of the standard engine parts, i can say that i've only ever had one failure on the engine design that uses a narrow crankshaft seal on the magneto side of the engine. I have never experienced a seal failure on engines that use wide version.

The Jaguar CDI has completely solved all of the big end connecting rod bearing failures that i have experienced, of which i (previous to installation of the Jaguar CDI) experienced many failures on engines that used the caged needle roller bearing design for the big end of the connecting rod.

I have never had a crankshaft bearing fail, nor have i had a clutch shaft bearing fail.

I have never experienced a small end connecting rod bearing failure.

I have never experienced a standard CDI failure

I have only experienced one magneto coil failure.

The NT carburettor is surprisingly reliable and relatively easy to tune with a great range Delorto main jets.

The standard cylinder head tends to overheat badly when road speed drops below 10 mph at wide open throttle; running somewhere in the vicinity of 4,500 rpm.
The CR Machine Manufacturing billet cylinder heads completely solve this problem.