The fastest motorcycle in the world is not some elite racer piloted across the salt flats at crazy speeds, instead it’s your first bike. Even if it’s a 50 cc moped, no other motorcycle you will own afterwards will give you that same hit as the first time you sit astride it and open the throttle. It has to be admitted though, that 50 cc mopeds are slow if it’s not your first ever ride. Really slow. How can they be made faster? Perhaps an extra cylinder will do the trick. In the video below the break, [LeDan] takes a single cylinder Simson moped engine and turns it into a 2-cylinder model.
The build has something of the machining porn about it, but who doesn’t like to sit down and watch as rough metal is transformed into a machined finish? A second Simson engine is used as a donor, and from it another crankcase section is fabricated. In that foes a newly enlarged crankshaft which we’re supprised not to see being balanced, and on the end of the whole assembly goes the Simson end casting. Two cylinders and their blocks the bolt on top, and the engine is complete. It’s a twin-carb model, and we have to admit curiosity as to whether small two-strokes need their carbs balancing. The result seems to work, though we don’t see it on a bike or at high revs. The kid with this engine really would have the fastest motorcycle in the world — compared to his mates.
As you might expect, this isn’t the first small engine build we’ve seen.
Now all I need to do is get two CB-750s so I can make a striaght-eight motorbike that’s even more ludicrous than that straight-six engine Honda made. And it’ll be as wide as a car.
You might have to cut one in 2 halves and arrange them like ABCD on a row and EF (1 cylinder space) GH on the other row, so you’ll have air flow and some space for easier install.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sjxiHLZdSGw
Came here for Allen Millyard, well done sir.
Why stop at eight?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ratfuML9QA
Moto Guzzi V8 499 cc GP Racing Motorcycle 1957-1958 GP season. Top Speed 275Km/h
There are a couple different V8 engines made from two Hayabusa straight four heads stuck onto a custom V8 block. They’re pretty amazing, and at least one is in moderately large quantity production as it’s the prime mover for a race/track car: Radical Sportscars’ RPE-V8. It’s a very impressive engine for a semi-DIY project. They’re getting thousands of hours of service out of them.
nice
Yes. I wouldn’t throw any shade on the original item but Alan Millyard is the master of this sort of thing. His work is all beautiful and functional and I would urge anyone who has read this far to check it out on TouTube.
“The fastest motorcycle in the world is not some elite racer piloted across the salt flats at crazy speeds”
A sneaky reference to ‘The World’s Fastest Indian’? For anyone who has not seen this movie, it involves long-term hacking of of an Indian motorcycle in the best traditions of Hackaday.
No?
It is most likely just a simple reference to the fact that the fastest [insert ground vehicle] was likely run on a salt flat, since that is the easy/cheap/consistent place to do it.
Miles and miles of flat space wih very little FOD or regulations.
Consistent temperature for repeatable tests.
You should see the heavily modified moped racing getting around 40hp out of a rectified 50cc cilinder and doing 160 kph on straights. Guess this one is not even close
What’s the gearing like? I’ve seen monkey bikes tricked up to 100 kph, but the problem was that the chain overheated and started glowing red.
Way back in the before-times, a guy put an aerosol-can sized nitrous feed on a go-ped (powered skateboard with handlebars) and IIRC got it to something like ~100 kph before the engine siezed. Apparently he survived the experiment, but the sound of that tiny engine winding up into dog-ear-pain range was unforgettable.
Here in the Netherlands we have a big moped culture. I got 10 of them, the oldest is from 1957 (Puch MS50) and the newest (Gazelle Apollo, looks and acts like a pickuptruck bed with a moped behind it) is, if the info is correct, a 1971 model. I drive them everywhere, across europe, to work, to family. It’s great. I got a car but I rarely use it.
As an aside, I would love to own an Apé, but they are not street legal here in the States.
Road legality is less of an issue than insuring a weird (by us standards) vehicle.
I imported 3x kei trucks in 2020 for $2000 USD.
They hit 25-years ols in 2022, so they are street legal.
I cannot find a reasonable insurer for them though.
I either get told “we don’t insure home-made vehicles” when I tell them it doesn’t have a VIN because it is a JDM vehicle. Even after I point out they can just use the Japanese equivalent serial number.
Or I’m told I don’t need insurance to drive a vehicle on my farm. I don’t have a farm, so it’s not helpful.
Or I can get a 0-miles policy intended for show cars being driven around on a flatbed.
I literally cannot convince an insurance company to cover it. It’s maddening.
I drive like 500-800 miles a year, and it would be really nice to use something that gets 100 miles to the 1.5 gallon tank.
It would also be nice to have something with a truck bed for getting bulk mulch/soil/gravel when needed.
I was going to convert one to electric too.
But not if I can’t even insure a stock one…
Start your own insurance company just think about all the others in your spot
And here I am worrying about getting caught going faster than class 3 speeds on my e-bike…
Where I lived as a teenager, the legal driving age was 18 years old, but 16 year-olds could drive bikes less than 50cc. There was a big market for 49.9cc bikes that redlined at 14,000 rpm and put out 16 hp. They could outrun me on my 35 hp KZ400.
So, where’s the story about two potentiometers on a moped?
B^)
I won’t lie. I was looking for that in the picture for a hot minute.
Spell check?
Grammar check?
Not every reader ignores the words and goes straight to the video link.
Having sentences that don’t need to be reread 5 times to puzzle out their meaning would be great.
Someone years ago built a Peugeot 103 with 8 Cylinders!
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w0U7iw42Qyg&w=560&h=315%5D
This is great! I wonder if there are any off-the-shelf 49cc two-cylinder motors that could be used instead? Maybe something out of a big R/C plane? Or a small ultralight?