Our experience
Hi everyone, we really enjoy reading the forums. Its nice to see others have experienced what we did and found some great solutions to common problems. Our first build turned out to be too unreliable with too many break downs to be reliable transportation for my son who needs it to go to work. 350 mi/month. However, the experience from that first build taught us many things to do on the second build.
We decided to build on a Kahuna 7 speed beach cruiser that we had since it has a heavy frame construction and the V angle is ideal for mounting the 2 cycle engines. Although our first engine was still usable we decided to buy another kit and found the Black slant 80 the best choice. The mounts on this engine seem to be ideal for bikes with larger dia front vertical frames. No drilling no grinding required. The studs on these motors are very poor metal so we decided to back out all the studs, even the exhaust studs and replace with stainless steel 6 mil bolts to screw into the motor. Yes you must get the right length bolts but trust me these are much tougher than those china pop metal studs that come with the engine. Ace Hardware stock just went up. Next we beefed up the wheels and tires to heavy gauge spokes, tires and tubes. Why? Cause when you bolt that sprocket on those spokes the torque can put the wheel out of line and cause wobble. Chain alignment is crucial to the reliability of the bike. Two things must be done here. Where ever the sprocket on the engine ends up with the mounting is where you must line up the chain to the back wheel sprocket. We had to put spacer washers between the back wheel and frame. Next we had to bend the idler pulley bracket to conform to the angle of frame to the chain. You don't need much but when the pulley is straight with the chain it will save the bearings and wear on pulley. These are just a few things we have learned. This bike has run for months with out a break down with over 350 mi each month. I will try to send a couple of pictures. We would welcome your comments. Thanks Vic and Danny