Charlie's Bravo powered G1 project

[CharlieN]

The starter was not bad to deal with, the commutator and brushes were fine.
The bearing on the output end, a 6203RS was fine but the commutator end bearing, a 6202RS was rather lumpy. I have these here so I swapped out that bearing and put the starter back together. Much better. Now the battery I have sitting in the shop is a bit weak so I have it on charge. I expect the starter to spin up a bit better with more that 7.2 volt going to it.

[CharlieN]

Another good day on this little car,
I did not expect the oil pump drive gear to arrive, the estimate was for late April.

I needed to make some tooling to press the gear in place. A leftover roll cage tube turned square on the ends and some other scrap worked well to install the gear.

Now I could assemble the drive for real, it is all together.


I thought I had more pictures of the exhaust and carb as they went together.
Later for those I guess.
I needed a cable set for this so out came the solder pot and I now have a nice new set of cables,


And some custom work needed for the throttle,
The throttle will be a story for another post since the Bravo needed 6mm more cable pull. Later for this.




What I did not shoot pictures of, I rolled this outside and fired it up
Next step will be to make it drive. There was very little old fuel in the tank but I needed to run it on a bottle of premix till the oil pump is bled out.
This is now done and the tank is back in.
If Sunday allows I will get some more little bits done and if all is good drive around for the first time.

[JcXtreme72]

Congrats on the fire up!

[slonomo]

Anxiously awaiting!

[CharlieN]

Thank you guys.
I have a square style Mikuni fuel pump around here that is new in the bag leftover from a Rotax powered airplane. I seem to have moved it to a nice safe place, dang.
So I think I will need to get this driveable with the original G1 fuel pump. Oh well. I can order in a pump and that should bring the one I have here out of hiding.

[slonomo]

That's usually the way it works for me....I see it all the time and it gets in my way....but when I need it, it's NEVER where I've seen it before and I can't even find it! Why? Because our wives moved it! Blame it on them, darn it! LOL

Your G1 pump should work fine. Just make sure you have lots of fuel in the tank, I've noticed at less than 1/4 tank I get fuel slosh and the pickup runs dry on occasion. With the added power and torque, that might be amplified?

[CharlieN]

It runs it drives. I am happy. It has a loose pitman arm and I want to set the toe in a bit better before I open the throttle up with a GPS on board. Doesn't mean I wont get the first test up the road to get a ballpark.

The generator is not coming up strong, 12.7V at medium rpm. I need to learn about the regulator and other options to get a stronger charge.

Brakes are not particularly strong, I have yet to pull a drum and see what condition they are in.

And tuning the drive, yup that needs to be addressed. The engagement is not bad, a little aggressive but it does not downshift worth doo. So I will probably call Don P and see what he has to offer.

Pictures and if I can make it happen a Video later.

[slonomo]

Hows the acceleration? Engages good? That's a surprise, I would have thought you'd need more rpm, but I've heard the Bravo's and Enticer's were not high rpm machines and made really good low end torque.

The downshift thing I think is secondary clutch issue. Either worn spring, worn ramp shoes, or both. The Plowman's kit will fix that. A bad belt will cause problems too, but backshifting is all secondary clutch.

[CharlieN]

Originally Posted by slonomo

Hows the acceleration? Engages good? That's a surprise, I would have thought you'd need more rpm, but I've heard the Bravo's and Enticer's were not high rpm machines and made really good low end torque.

The downshift thing I think is secondary clutch issue. Either worn spring, worn ramp shoes, or both. The Plowman's kit will fix that. A bad belt will cause problems too, but backshifting is all secondary clutch.

Acceleration is fair, I feel it is upshifting early in that the engine does not sound to be revving high, but I have not used full throttle out of the hole yet.
I did a speed run, 18.4 mph when it started backfiring. The ignition coil came loose from it's makeshift mount and lost the ground. That aceleration run was about 150' on level puddly dirt. I had run faster on a previous run without the GPS in hand.
Again it felt as though it was in high gear and the engine had much more revs available.
The clutch has a spacer under the spring, I want to reduce this some since in the long run it limits the travel towards high gear a bit, 0.090" or so. This will call for grinding or drilling weights which will happen once I source a fresher clutch cover.

The power band of the engine is fine, at no time have I noticed the engine come alive as if it had been off power. The clutch engages and the cart drives quite well. There is no wheel spinning power and at an estimated 15 HP I do not expect this.
I would say the engine has a wide flat torque curve.
I have an interest in getting a tachometer onboard if not temporarily for tuning needs.

The secondary clutch is in decent stock condition with light scoring on the ramps. It sure does need changes so it backshifts.
Slo, you mentioned you changed to a 28° ramp clutch. Do you recall what the original angle is? What is the source for the changed angle parts?
I notice that "machined" clutches are just machining a flat so the sheaves close up more which I have no need for with the 1¼" wide belt.
A change in helix angle I am interested and I want to learn about the spring options. I am still searching on this before I start a thread asking for actual numbers.

One thing I like is the engine starts instantly when warm, like one revolution. At this time I have the black wire on the throttle switch removed so the engine can idle.
I can just tap the throttle with a finger and the engine is running, not hold the throttle, just tap it

[slonomo]

Charlie, I got my performance secondary clutch kit from Don at Plowman's, they are a site sponsor. Give him a call, he's an old sled racer so he know's what he's talking about. I'm sure he can rattle off the specs and give you his opinion.

You should be seeing more power than you described. With the stock engine and 9 hp you should be able to break the tires loose a little on gravel. So with a 50% increase I'd expect more snap, I suspect carb and clutch tuning will get you running much better!