There are some good strong modern geared hubs, but they are insanely expensive. Like, just buy a motorcycle levels of expensive.
My Phantom Experience.
- Thread starter ImpulseRocket
- Start date
Karl Snarl
Well-Known Member
You'll wear one before you break it. Bike chain is more than plenty to hold the power after the gear reduction. I dump the clutch and do burn outs and really beat the snot out of mine. The UHD is more than plenty for a P85, over kill. The HD will handle it. I never had a problem with mine, until last month, and it still works, but throws the chain in first, lock ring wore and allowed excessive wobble. I can still shift all other gears fine though, but can't do sweet burnouts. lol. Going to fix it up tomorrow. An when I say I beat my bikes, I mean like a red headed step child in the 1700's. I have a lot of fun thrashing them. I was worried about the shift kit at first, but after using the cheap one, then switching to SPB's, SPB's gave me total confidence. The cheap ones scare me. lol. SPB's kit, I have no worries at all, totally worth the extra cash in quality. An as long as you buy a decent rear freewheel, even a Murray, you won't have to worry. If you beat them like I do, you will change them our because the thin cogs wear and will start skipping. It's why I chose the freewheel I have. They are old, from the 60'-70's, and from comp bikes. Real thick cogs, last one has a lot of miles on it, no signs of wearing out anytime soon. I won't tell you the cog set, I know I'm selfish. lol. I just know how rare they are and can cost over $100 a piece. I may have found the last of them though. I got the last set, I think for $12 a piece. Still in box and original wrapping. Grease was still good too!!! It was from a Chinese guy that bought a container of old bike parts from America, and was selling them. I really don't think he understood how much they were worth, or how much he could have got from a collector!! The newer version of them are ok, but I don't thnk they would last nearly as long as these before wearing out the teeth. The ones I have are over twice as thick and use a single speed chain. The new ones use a 5,6,7 chain.
Karl Snarl
Well-Known Member
Oh and a sturmey archer hub will work awesome on these, just stick with the 3 speed for long life. I've just bee to lazy to get mine made into wheels.
Honestly, 3 speeds is all that is really needed if you plan the rest of the gearing out properly. I've done some math already looking at different combinations and it is entirely possible to get the bike geared in 3 steps close to that of the 3 sprocket choices that often come with these kits. I think one of mine worked out to be the equivalent of a 52 tooth in low gear, 44 middle, and 35 on the high end. On a 700C wheel that really does kind of give the best of all worlds. Hill climb, generic cruise, and high speed flat ground.
Chainlube
Well-Known Member
A 288XP is a Husqvarna 87cc chainsaw.
Karl Snarl
Well-Known Member
I have a 5 speed. I use all the gears, depending on the grade. I think of 4th and 5th more like over drive. I can go plenty fast in 3rd, lol. 1st tops at around 20-21 mph, from a stand still. 3rd will hit 45mph. An usually by that point I leave them all in the dust when riding with others. lol. # speeds is more than plenty. my cogs go from drive cog to chain ring as such 10 to 22, to 10, to 44, to 40. Then to the back. An I don't remember the rear off hand, but ends at a 12 or 11 tooth I believe. I really should get some of these sturmeys laced up, I have like 4 or 5 of them. An they have been sitting for a while. lol
Ahh, that reference flew right over my head I guess. I didn't even tie the two together in my head. I guess in a way you could look at the 288XP and MS660 as very similar animals. Same bore at least, but the 660 has a slightly longer 40mm stroke making it just shy of 92cc. Looking at the cylinder design it wouldn't be a bad option for a saw cylinder frankenstein engine on an LD110 bottom end, assuming the wrist pin bearing would work at least.
Yeah, and all out speed isn't really what I am after. 50mph on a bicycle, while it sounds cool, is also a bit beyond my comfort zone. I have motorcycles for that.
I have heavily considered the Enviolo DuVinci 380 CVP (CVT) hub. They are quite hefty and there are versions rated for quite heavy loads/power. Cost wise they are kind of in the middle between affordable and "just buy a motorcycle" and offer a ratio range of .5 under drive to 1.9 overdrive.
I forget all of my gear combinations I worked out to get my "cadence" at the crank set, but I do remember it being 190 rpm at 7500 engine RPM. The drive range on the CVT using a 22 tooth drive sprocket means it has a range of a cassette similar to a 12-44, and with a drive ratio of 1.63:1 with the crank set using a 36 tooth sprocket gives me the equivalent underdrive ratio of a direct drive rear sprocket with 115 teeth (top speed at 7500rpm would be 12.8mph). The maximum overdrive ratio would be equivalent to that of a 32 tooth direct drive, giving a speed of 46mph at 7500 RPM.
Obviously you could play with the drive and driven sprockets to increase or decrease relative ratios as you saw fit. Jump up to a 2:1 on the chainring and rear sprocket and the drive equivalents go to 95 on the underdrive and 26 on the over, still giving great hill climbing ability, but the option to choose lower RPM for higher speed cruising, if that is your thing.
So, to actually go back to the real subject here. My Phantom and my experience with it. I did take it for it's first real maiden voyage today, a couple of them actually. Contrary to the opinion of some, I am running it on VP synthetic oil with a 20:1 break in ratio for at least 2 tanks and then I am going to lighten that ratio up to 36:1. I am trying to strike a balance during the break in period because I know for a fact that Caber rings do tend to take a bit longer to wear in properly, but I hate running heavy oil ratios for long periods of time.
It's definitely a little bit smokey, and my 80 main jet is a tad rich from what I can tell, but not as crazy rich as I thought it would be. I haven't gone wide open yet so I won't know how good the main really is. I moved the needle clip up one notch for now, which has the low and mid throttle fueling on the very dark brown side of things, which I am more than happy with.
My first ride was just 10 minutes puttering around my neighborhood, never really going beyond half throttle. Just enough to get the motor nice and warm. Surprisingly, even at just half throttle it pulled my 258lbs of 6'4 behemoth around rather well. Had to help it a little bit off the start, but at about 10mph I can throttle in and it pulls on flat ground with ease. I let it sit and rest a couple of hours and then went and checked all of my bolts again, including my head nuts. I then used the acorn nuts as a lock nut (with 243 loctite). Gave it a visual inspection, and so far no oil leaks that I can see, though that may take time to show up. At the moment I have no air leaks, which I am happy with.
My second ride was about 15 minutes around my little area, again not ever really laying into the throttle much. Maybe got to 3/4 throttle at one moment when I was testing one of the steeper hills, and it did ok pulling up the hill. It's fairly steep but only about 1 block long before I have to turn off to a flat road. I still think I may be a bit taller than I would like, but I won't know for sure until I can test it on one of the longer hills in my area.
I am very happy to report that the balancing of the crank made this engine about as smooth as I think it's possible to get. It does love to rev up effortlessly. I can't wait to give it a proper full throttle blast.
As far as the bike. So far it is handling things well. The rear clamp on hub adapter I used in conjunction with Loctite 638 retaining compound has not slipped thus far. I used a grease pen to mark reference points on the hub and adapter so I can track if it moves. I will be keeping an eye on it, of course, but I think I have a winner there.
It's definitely a little bit smokey, and my 80 main jet is a tad rich from what I can tell, but not as crazy rich as I thought it would be. I haven't gone wide open yet so I won't know how good the main really is. I moved the needle clip up one notch for now, which has the low and mid throttle fueling on the very dark brown side of things, which I am more than happy with.
My first ride was just 10 minutes puttering around my neighborhood, never really going beyond half throttle. Just enough to get the motor nice and warm. Surprisingly, even at just half throttle it pulled my 258lbs of 6'4 behemoth around rather well. Had to help it a little bit off the start, but at about 10mph I can throttle in and it pulls on flat ground with ease. I let it sit and rest a couple of hours and then went and checked all of my bolts again, including my head nuts. I then used the acorn nuts as a lock nut (with 243 loctite). Gave it a visual inspection, and so far no oil leaks that I can see, though that may take time to show up. At the moment I have no air leaks, which I am happy with.
My second ride was about 15 minutes around my little area, again not ever really laying into the throttle much. Maybe got to 3/4 throttle at one moment when I was testing one of the steeper hills, and it did ok pulling up the hill. It's fairly steep but only about 1 block long before I have to turn off to a flat road. I still think I may be a bit taller than I would like, but I won't know for sure until I can test it on one of the longer hills in my area.
I am very happy to report that the balancing of the crank made this engine about as smooth as I think it's possible to get. It does love to rev up effortlessly. I can't wait to give it a proper full throttle blast.
As far as the bike. So far it is handling things well. The rear clamp on hub adapter I used in conjunction with Loctite 638 retaining compound has not slipped thus far. I used a grease pen to mark reference points on the hub and adapter so I can track if it moves. I will be keeping an eye on it, of course, but I think I have a winner there.
Chainlube
Well-Known Member
If you're ever worried if the adaptor is going to slip, you can always use a roll pin to pin it.
