Hello all. I am new to the forum and this is my first post here, although I have been lurking and reading for quite some time and have learned a ton of valuable information from so many ES members. I would first like to say thank you all very much for you're contributions. You have inspired me and given me confidence to dive into this whole ebike thing headfirst (or should I say head over heels?

) Without this forum, I'm not sure that would have happened.
Here is where I'm at with my first build.
I have a 26" hardtail mountain bike which I am converting to a rear hub ebike.
I am custom building my battery out of salvaged 18650 cells. The pack is almost complete and will be located inside my frames triangle in a pre-made bag. The battery pack is a 14s7p configuration, which will give me 52v and approximately 20ah (panasonic NCR-B cells).
The motor is a leafbike 1500w - 13 x 5T, which I ordered as a kit, and just received from leafbike. I figure it will get me started and I will upgrade various components as necessary or as I'm able to do so. First upgrade will most likely be a Lyen 12 or 18 FET controller. The kit came with a 12 FET 40A max controller, which should suffice me for a while (mostly commuting on road with some mild hills). But I'm sure my need for speed will get the better of me soon enough.
So here is my problem. I wanted to use 2.5" tires (Maxxis Hookworms) on the wheel. So I requested the appropriate wheel for this and they sent me the wrong one! The motor is laced to a 28" (or 700c) wheel which will definitely not fit in my bike. So now it looks like I'll get to do my first hub lacing, much sooner than I anticipated!
Since I will have to change the wheel anyway, I think I would like to go with a moped type rim and tire, and was hoping someone could help me determine which size wheel/tire I should go with, and based on that and the size of my motor, which spokes (length?) I would need to get.
Thanks in advance to anyone who could offer any help.
G
1st build: (commuter conversion) Novara HT / DIY 15s7p Panasonic NCRB's (harvested from used laptop packs) / 40a generic Chinese controller / 1500w 5T Leaf motor (STOCK)
2nd build: EEB frame / 20s4p of 7200mah Turnigy Hard Case Packs, 74v nominal, 28.8ah, 2131wh / Adaptto Max-E (9G4 firmware currently) + BMS + 70a Charge Coil onboard / QS 205 V3 Extra 5T