Attaching electric motor to dirt bike gearbox

[LegendLength]

Just in theory, could you grind off the top half of a dirt bike motor:

Then attach an electric motor onto the crankshaft (i.e. the largest circle in the photo)?

It seems like it would be a squeeze for the electric motor diameter-wise but perhaps a longer profile motor would solve it, say a foot long at most.

On four strokes like that one in the photo they have a separate oil area for the gearbox (bottom in photo). So I'm guessing you could shave off all the casing above the gearbox and you'd be able to get good airflow over the motor. I like the idea of re-using the existing radiator on a dirt bike mainly for aesthetics.

Any thoughts on how feasible it would be?

 

[Lebowski]

Or you could remove the crankshaft and put an RC motor in it's place.

I like the idea posted here earlier (by the polish fellow in NYC, forgot his name, sorry ).
You can replace the crankshaft with an axle grinder type 90 degree drive and put a big fat RC
motor where the cilinder/cilinderhead is.

You can also keep the crankshaft and build a reciprocal electric motor now that would be cool !

 

[amberwolf]

Or replace the crankshaft with a sprocket on a shaft, with a chain to a motor mounted outside the casing. Or a pulley/belt. This was one possible plan for the Suzuki transmission/frame from Mdd0127, when he had it, and one I might eventually do myself.

 

[Hillhater]

Of course it can (has) been done, ...but there is a lot of drag and power loss in a multi speed gearbox.
You dont need all those gears for an electric drive, 2 or 3 at the most, so you would want to seriously modify the gearbox to eliminate unwanted gears, & minimise the drag and weight.
Of course, you could always use one of those separate gearboxes they use on Harley's ! :lol: