A friend and I were noticing the Honda/clone motors have the cylinder facing the wrong way. If it pointed out the front of the bike it be so much more room, better cooling,etc. A couple ways to do this. One is have a cam made, change timing and the motor would run "backwards" so you could turn it around. Other way is a set of gears to reverse it. But would a TC still work? Sounds like a lot of work I know, but I see some of the huge hours and money dropped into these little bikes by some highly skilled builders with access to a vast range of tools. Anyone else thought/tried this?
Not sure why you would consider the standard engine position "facing the wrong way". A large majority of the cooling is handled by the fan on the flywheel. How would you position the engine on a piece of equipment that has no air flow like it has on a mini bike or go kart? To some of the performance guys these engines sometimes run too cool so they block air holes on the blower housing to keep head temp higher than it otherwise would be. Some have even cut off every other fin on the fan to add performance and a higher head temp.
Your thoughts make sense when it comes to old school air cooled (2 stroke) dirt bikes which already have the head facing forward. Those engines didn't have a fan, blower housing, and tin bolted to the head to direct the airflow like these small mini bike engines have.
I don't think any gain of reversing the engine position would be worth the effort involved. Just my opinion.
Your thoughts make sense when it comes to old school air cooled (2 stroke) dirt bikes which already have the head facing forward. Those engines didn't have a fan, blower housing, and tin bolted to the head to direct the airflow like these small mini bike engines have.
I don't think any gain of reversing the engine position would be worth the effort involved. Just my opinion.
Oh I agree the work to do so would not be worth the effort, but that never stopped anyone before, lol. Mostly to make room for jack shafts etc. And to make it more "motorcycle looking". At first glance it looks like you could shorten everything up quite a bit. Even have the head stick out between the downtubes like on the early Honda 90's. At the speeds these little bikes travel the fan cooling does it all, doubtful how much air flow would add. But it would add some.
I hate the look of the lean-back engines, and think reversed with free-air cooling would be fine.
Either a gearbox that changes directions, like one lad did with an extended shaft Peerless, or the semi-tricky engine rotational direction change. It would require altering the camshaft lobe positions. OR,,, removing the gears and replacing with sprockets, like a Honda G400
Either a gearbox that changes directions, like one lad did with an extended shaft Peerless, or the semi-tricky engine rotational direction change. It would require altering the camshaft lobe positions. OR,,, removing the gears and replacing with sprockets, like a Honda G400
A while back I saw someone do that with a kohler ohv motor one of the USA made ones before they went to Chinese clones.
The guy simply used two vbelt pullies. One to a jackshaft and one to the crank and made the belt into a figure eight. The centrifugal clutch was on the opposite side of the Jack shaft and then chain went to rear tire..
The figure eight'd belt reversed the rotation to allow forward movement. He had it all under a belt cover. It was pretty slick and hauled him around just fine.
The guy simply used two vbelt pullies. One to a jackshaft and one to the crank and made the belt into a figure eight. The centrifugal clutch was on the opposite side of the Jack shaft and then chain went to rear tire..
The figure eight'd belt reversed the rotation to allow forward movement. He had it all under a belt cover. It was pretty slick and hauled him around just fine.
