ZombieSS's Official Greyborg Warp build thread LOTS OF PICs

[John in CR]

Let's hope that regardless of the size of a department that no police are out hassling ebikers unless someone is being an ass on a shared path or trail, or breaking traffic laws.

 

[Rix]

Not by me, I am the only ebiker in the area, but there are a metric crap ton of Spooky tooth gasser kits on bicycles in this area. As long as they arent being stupid in congested school zones, I don't give them a second look. Those things are sure loud though. They sound alot like a kids MC. My dad had one on his bike until Hyena hooked my up with his Neutron kit. Now my dad wont ride anything else but ebikes. YAH

 

[zombiess]

Most US police don't seem to care about bikes unless the rider is being really stupid or it's an are where the police are out of control such as in a big city like LA or Chicago. Fallon NV is a tiny dot on the map. I am surprised there are so many gas bikes, but its cheap fun transport. Sucks they are loud. I have seen around 5 gas bikes in my area and about the same for Ebikes. Ebikes tend to be harder to spot so I have probably seen more than I realize. My local bike shop is an ezip repair shop and I have seen 2 in there. Evidently they have some controller issues.

 

[Cresh]

I've never seen a gas bike in my area, but have seen many ebikes. They are harder to spot, and which is why I think I can get away with riding the greyborg around town. As long as you are pedaling and are going the same speed as others, there won't (and shouldn't) be a problem with police.

 

[Rix]

I've never seen a gas bike in my area, but have seen many ebikes. They are harder to spot, and which is why I think I can get away with riding the greyborg around town. As long as you are pedaling and are going the same speed as others, there won't (and shouldn't) be a problem with police.

This is the truth!

Rick

 

[dawrench]

Awesome looking build. Regarding the fitting of the freewheel, Is there a spacer washer between the freewheel and the hub? Or just between the axle end and the swingarm?

 

[zombiess]

Awesome looking build. Regarding the fitting of the freewheel, Is there a spacer washer between the freewheel and the hub? Or just between the axle end and the swingarm?

C washer, then a spacer washer between freewheel and frame. I just redid everything this past weekend to gain some extra clearance. I have redesigned the C washers and they are now 1/8" thick and are less likely to cut into the wires. The ones I showed in the pictured had the sharp edges where the wires make contact filed down.

I also moved away from the zip tie and to a velcro strap solution to hold the wire bundle close to the axle, works even better and no worries of it getting brittle and breaking.

 

[zombiess]

Bike is almost ready to ride now. 52T chain ring installed with chain. Chain line is perfect. Front and rear Hayes Prime brakes are installed. Glad I went with the 1900mm hose for the rear, perfect fit.

V3 Cycle Analyst and throttle are mounted. All I need now to get the bike moving under power is to install the batteries and controller. I think initially I will run a eb324 controller and experiment with the CA throttle control. I hope to have 18s2p installed temporarily this weekend for my maiden voyage. Final configuration is probably going to be 18s4p with a Founding power BMS to make the setup as maintenance free as possible. I love the simplicity of bulk charging.

This bike is a beast. My wife calls it the monster bike because its so big.

 

[Rix]

Zombiess, how tall are you? I was looking at your pic on the first page and I thought that frame had to be big when it makes 19x2.75 Shinkos look normal to smallish. Kind of like a Mountain bike custom built for Shaq running 26MTBs. At 54" wheel base, I didn't realize just how big your machine was. So, where are the pics of the completed rolling chassis? Telling us you got everything except the controller and batteries installed without pics is like ordering an extra large pepperoni pizza and not having beer to wash it down with.

Rick

 

[zombiess]

Here you go, pic as requested. I have been thinking about the side covers and how to mount them. Plastic barb push pins like they use on the inside of cars for trim is one idea, but then last night wile routing the brake hoses and wires with Velcro straps I started thinking of a way to use the same straps for attaching the panels. I am thinking a few minutes with a dreme to cut some slots from the inside might work good. I attached a pelican case that holds batteries to my wife's handle bars this same way.

Rix, its surprising how big this bike feels but it fits me perfect. The areas suspension is set to give me around 30% sag when I sit on the seat and it has 8 inches of rear travel and over 7" of front. It feels very much like a gas dirt bike in the riding position which is high, upright and appears to be quite comfortable. When I use to ride a KLR 650 it was a similar ride height.

I am thinking of ordering a cheaper shorter shock to check out how it rides and looks for those who are shorter and want one of these frames. The 240mm is perfect for me, even a 260mm would be OK with proper sag. I am thinking something around 200-220 for riders who are under 6ft. While riding pedal power only I did manage to scrape a pedal going around a corner, but it was on a speed bump so and the pedal all the way down. User error on that on. Right now I think I could get close to maximum lean angle on this which is probably around 30 degrees before pedal strike, but that also depends on suspension compression.

 

[Rix]

its surprising how big this bike feels but it fits me perfect. The areas suspension is set to give me around 30% sag when I sit on the seat and it has 8 inches of rear travel and over 7" of front. It feels very much like a gas dirt bike in the riding position which is high, upright and appears to be quite comfortable. When I use to ride a KLR 650 it was a similar ride height.

If it fits you perfectly, than thats all that really matters. Speaking of KLR650, thats the only motorcycle my pops has left. He had Carls Cycles in Boise put a 705cc bigbore kit. It will run with a BMW GS800 up to about 85MPH than the Beember pulls away due to lack of over rev of the 650. 30% sag, seems a little much, but when you factor in there is no static sag from the machine without a rider, its not nearly as much as it seems. Consider motorcycles have around 30-50mm of static sag, than around 107-110mm for rider static sag then your 30% is right on the money. That is one sweet looking ride. I said it before, but you know its big when the 244s look a slight bit on the smallish side. About the only ride I know is bigger is drunk skunks machine.

Rick

 

[zombiess]

its surprising how big this bike feels but it fits me perfect. The areas suspension is set to give me around 30% sag when I sit on the seat and it has 8 inches of rear travel and over 7" of front. It feels very much like a gas dirt bike in the riding position which is high, upright and appears to be quite comfortable. When I use to ride a KLR 650 it was a similar ride height.

If it fits you perfectly, than thats all that really matters. Speaking of KLR650, thats the only motorcycle my pops has left. He had Carls Cycles in Boise put a 705cc bigbore kit. It will run with a BMW GS800 up to about 85MPH than the Beember pulls away due to lack of over rev of the 650. 30% sag, seems a little much, but when you factor in there is no static sag from the machine without a rider, its not nearly as much as it seems. Consider motorcycles have around 30-50mm of static sag, than around 107-110mm for rider static sag then your 30% is right on the money. That is one sweet looking ride. I said it before, but you know its big when the 244s look a slight bit on the smallish side. About the only ride I know is bigger is drunk skunks machine.

Rick

I figured 30% sag would be pretty good with me on it since it's got a lot of travel compared to most bikes, that 30% sag only lowers the bike about 2" I think so there should still be around 6" of travel left, so I believe it's inline with something like a free ride bike. My front suspension is set so it compresses about 1" with me on it. As you said there is zero static sag on any of the suspension. I'll have to actually measure how much lower the bike is with me on it vs static, I could be way off and am just tossing out a number I think is in the ball park. You are right, in the pictures the tires do look pretty small, but they are 25.3" in diameter and 3.3" at the cross section. Zvonimir aka Hal9000V2 on here is a heck of an engineer. The rear suspension travels in an arc so I believe the the sag vs suspension compression is not a linear in relationship. I probably have my suspension setup softer than most people would because I like a soft ride.

This rim/tire combination was a big surprise for me. I did not expect them to be so wide, but a 2.15" super motor rim is way wider than I thought it would be. It's very similar to the fat tire Cromotor rim setup I sold and that rim measured right around 80mm outside to outside. This setup just barely fits in the front. I'm very please with how good the bike looks. I would like to get a picture of my bike next to a Stealth Bomber. The Bomber looks small in comparison in the pictures and videos that I've seen. What is it like to pedal a Bomber? Can you get a proper pedal position and still be comfortable? As the bike sits now I sit almost upright because I have 60mm rise bars and an additional 60 degree adjustable stem on it set all the way up. The riding position feels like it's going to be very comfortable and the seat is current setup to what should be pretty close to my perfect pedaling position so I can apply the most effort.

If you look at the older Greyborg Warp rear swing arm setup I believe it's shorter than this setup. This new design looks and functions better, the downside is the bike has a 54" wheel base... if that's really a downside? The long wheel base should in help with preventing unwanted power wheelies. Every high power rider has been caught off guard by them. The worst ones are when you are leaving from a dead stop and it catches you off guard, but I've received some thumbs up from cage drivers by leaving a dead stop and carrying a power wheelie with the front end hovering a few inches off the ground for 20 feet or so. Must have looked cool and planned to those watching, but my full face helmet hid my oh shit face as I tried to get it back under control :lol: I've only noticed it's harder to move around in the house compared to my other bikes, especially my wife's tiny kids bike with 20" wheels which only weighs 60lbs ready to ride, even with her on it it's < 160lbs and I can still pick it up and move it.

I think I'm going to break out the soldering iron tonight and change the motor connections so I can hook up my 24 FET controller, I'm itching to ride this bike and also test out the CA V3 current throttle feature.

 

[Rix]

The Bomber looks small in comparison in the pictures and videos that I've seen. What is it like to pedal a Bomber? Can you get a proper pedal position and still be comfortable?

Suprisingly, the Bomber pedals really well in the lower gears. Any gear between 1-5 is totally doable with no power. 6-9 not so much even though I can pedal 6-7 with the wind or down a slight decline. Stealth really did their homework with the frame/Vboxx/head tube/seat tube relationship. It works well. A photo of the Bomber next to your Greyborg Warp would no doubt show the Bomber looking smallish. I have a 19x1.4 and a Marzocchi hub at Volt Riders as we speak, they are going to lace that wheel up so I can run the Shinko SR241 19x2.75 on the front. Right now I have a 17x1.4 running a 1.75x17 Duro HF307. Its 23.4 inches by 2.95 wide. Once the 5405 arrives, that will change.

[quoteI've received some thumbs up from cage drivers by leaving a dead stop and carrying a power wheelie with the front end hovering a few inches off the ground for 20 feet or so. Must have looked cool and planned to those watching, but my full face helmet hid my oh shit face as I tried to get it back under control ][/quote]

I haven't had this problem. Of course I am a fat ass and only running 5KW peak. But as Mickey Rourk quoted in Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man, "its better to be dead and cool, than alive and uncool". So that power wheelie you carried is on par with how I think things should be even if your oh shit face was concealed behind a full face helmet. .

I think I'm going to break out the soldering iron tonight and change the motor connections so I can hook up my 24 FET controller, I'm itching to ride this bike and also test out the CA V3 current throttle feature.

Well that tells me you are going way north of 5KW. Better be used to those power wheelies

Rick

 

[LSBW]

But as Mickey Rourk quoted in Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man, "its better to be dead and cool, than alive and uncool".

LOL. Nobody have seen that movie in N.A. Cool quote, nevertheless.

 

[zombiess]

It's Alive. Went for my first ride today. I temporarily installed the 2 main side covers to make pedaling easier, they are just attached with clear packing tape.

Controller is a EB324 24 FET IRFB4115 that I built. I'm running 18S LiPo so just 75V hot off the charger. Controller is set for at 140 which I think is around 185 phase (since the software only goes to an 18 FET, still not exactly sure how it works with these new 24 FET setups on phase amps), 105A battery. Rand the throttle in pass thru mode of the cycle analyst V3. Plan to play around with it some more. I noticed a very slight delay when letting off from WOT much like my throttle tamer will sometimes do, felt like an identical amount of lag time so probably somewhere <50mS. Hard to notice unless you are looking for it.

Long story short, running 7.5KW and the bike feels strong. It does not power wheelie at all. Feels balanced. I think I need to increase the preload on the rear shock. I noticed I can catch a pedal in a turn too easily if it's down. This was really noticeable when going through some grass soccer fields around 25-30mph when the suspension was having to do some work. I plan to swap out the current shock to a DNM Burner RCP2 with a 650lb spring soon now that the bike is running.

Top speed is just over 40mph. I need to GPS it to get the real number but I'm guessing 42-43mph, it pulls around 40-45A continuous at this speed. At high speed > 30mph the steering is heavy with really slow turn in (due to the centrifugal force of the heavy Shinko SR244 tires), over 20mph it has to be counter steered like a motor cycle, over 35MPH if you want to move quick you have to use some force to make it lean. The bike is super stable at speed, it's very confidence inspiring and very smooth. The suspension just soaks everything up. The other 2 bikes I have that are capable of > 40mph do not feel anything close to as good as this one. I can feel vibrations, bumps/cracks in the road. This bike rides like a Cadillac. Only annoyance I've found with the bike is maneuvering in tight spaces while walking next to it or backing up, the lock to lock steering is reduced by the covers. Doesn't effect riding at all, just need to plan a little differently than normal when riding on the sidewalk and coming up to a cross walk button that's not right next to the curb cut. Same goes with moving the bike around inside the house, it's big. Wife only refers to it as "Monster Bike" so that is now it's official nick name and it's appropriate. It really is a monster. Acceleration is really good, faster than I thought it would be for the tire diameter and only 100A, controller case is staying at ambient temp, but it's exposed to air flow since the lower covers are not in place. I think I might turn it up to 150 battery amps in the near future and play around. The temporary battery pack I have in it is 18s2p of 5AH Turnigy LiPo. Did a 7 mile ride on it's maiden voyage and averaged 18mph in 28mins of riding according to the CA. 57 WH/Mi with the first 2 miles being really hard, average after 2 miles was > 80 WH/Mi

I don't have any thing to jump (and I'm not much of a jumper) but I wanted to test out the suspension so I started hitting medium sized speed bumps at 25-30mph and was able to get a small bit of air. Felt really natural standing on the pedals leaning slightly back. Glided over them like nothing. I can not do this on any of my other bikes, at least not with confidence or without them jarring me.

I tried a short climb up a over pass walk way which is think is just over 10% grade and didn't really notice any reduction in acceleration.

My gearing is 52T front and 16T rear, single speed 1/8" chain. 52T is just about the biggest chain ring that will fit before you hit the swing arm, I have a 60 and it will not clear. With the Schlumpf in 1:1 mode pedaling along works really well up to about 22mph, after that the 1:1.65 high gear makes pedaling > 40mph possible and gives a good natural cadence. I'm thinking of dropping down to a 43T because it might be more useful. I don't see much use in pedaling > 40mph personally, but I'll try it out for a while, I rarely ride that fast which is the main reason I'm thinking of going to a smaller chain ring, I'd prefer more effective pedaling in the 12-17 and 25-35 range. I'm digging the Schlumpf and am already starting to adjust to just clicking it with my heel to change gears. Beautiful setup, very simple, I love not having a rear derailleur to worry about / tune / break / bend. I initially did not think that 2 gears would be enough, but now I'm starting to think it's plenty when you run a Cromotor.

Now I need a job that I can ride my bike to 1-5 times per week so the commute is more fun, I REALLY like how this bike rides so far. Need to get some video of it in action next weekend.

 

[litespeed]

Man that looks great! Can't remember if you said earlier in the thread but are you going to paint the canopies and if so what color? Does that seat supply enough surface area to feel secure?

With the big tire combo that looks just about perfect.

Tom

 

[Tommy L]

Zombiessssssss!

Very nicely done!

I've always liked the look of Triple Crown/Tree Forks. Beefy!

Now I want one..... I hate you Zombiessssss lol

Tommy L sends....

 

[zombiess]

Zombiessssssss!

Very nicely done!

I've always liked the look of Triple Crown/Tree Forks. Beefy!

Now I want one..... I hate you Zombiessssss lol

Tommy L sends....

If you want a frame I currently have 4 in stock with motors and rear shocks. I will have front forks again in a few months.

I just looked back at my original for sale thread on the frames which is when I started building mine. It took me 2 months to go from the frame to this stage. I wasn't exactly in a hurry and I only did a little work on weekends.

I am not sure what I am going to do with the side covers. I am wondering if its possible to wrap them in plastic like they do with cars. The other idea I had was doing that graphic dipping process, I could have the covers look like they were carbon fiber then. For now they are staying white. I need to come up with a she sure mounting system and get the batteries all neat and installed. It's a rats nest under the covers right now because I was in a hurry due to losing daylight.

 

[Rix]

WOW! That looks even better than I imagined. Glad its alive. With the colors of your forks, wheels, and components, painting the covers black with big air brushed flames (real fire color) would look great. SO, no power wheelies? By choice or is a throttle tamer setting issue? Well, if you bump up to 150 amps, probably going to wheelie then. Agree with you on your gearing. Think dropping to a 43t would be more practical not to mention more ground clearance. How long are the crank arms? Look like they are 170-175mm. A while back I found a 155mm crank for the Schlumpf bottom bracket. That could help with your cornering clearance issue. If you went with a 1inch longer shock, that would also help with clearance, this would cause your fork head tube angle to be steeper which would really help with below 30MPH steering. Judging by the pic, I don't think you would loose any high speed stability. If you were to run 24s, with speeds over 50MPH, you would probably feel the difference with a 1 degree change in your head tube angle, the difference would be that your bike would feel more "twitchy" or lighter steering at those kinds of speeds. I doubt you would notice it anywhere else, maybe steep off road down hills if you were bombing them fast. Anyway looks great, glad you got it going. Planning on any videos?

Rick

 

[sacko]

I'm annoyed this looks so good!

The rear swing arm is a massive improvement over the existing model. I was previously warned about pedal strike on the Greyborg, and it seems to be an issue here too. A longer shock should reduce the impact, but unsure how the fork angle will effect the stability at high speeds.

...and18s?!

 

[zombiess]

Took another ride tonight down to my local bike shop to show the owner my setup now that it's running. He is an ezip and razor service center. He thought the bike looked pretty mean, but big. Was impressed with the power when I gave a quick demo of acceleration on my > 60% discharged battery.

Speaking of batteries, I had just enough juice to get back home. I managed to go around 12.5 miles on my 18S "10AH" Turnigy pack. These batteries were purchased some time around early 2011 and are the 20C 6S packs. I was able to pull 7.67AH from the pack and it was resting at 64V and it was totally done. I just recalibrated my shunt based on this info to hopefully get a more accurate AH read out. The CA said I was pulling 7% more from the pack than I was in reality. The peak amp reading was 110A so my peak was actually around 102A and my sustained acceleration was around 95A. Considering the age of these cells and that I'm only running 2 in parallel it seems they did pretty well for beating on them with a lot of back to back 10C bursts, but show some reduction in capacity. They were pretty far out of balance (some packs 150-200mV, but all above 3.4V), but just hooking them all up in parallel brought them to within 20mV within a few seconds. A full balance charge all in parallel took care of the rest. I will eventually be installing a BMS and increasing the pack to 15 or even 20AH with my existing supply of 20C packs I have laying around and bulk charging.

It is very rare for me to run my packs this low, I try to carry at least 1/3rd more battery than I ever see myself needing, this was just a pack to get started quickly.

I used the icharger internal resistance measurement feature on these packs yesterday after charging them up and all cells reported 6mOhm or less resistance, but I did see some packs have a variation spread of 1-6mOhm.

I'm removing the 52T chain ring (which just barely fits, I don't think a 53T would) and going with a 43/44T, the pedaling cadence is too slow for my liking at the speeds I want to ride.

 

[LSBW]

How do you like that DNM fork so far?
I don't care about offroading, just regular commuting.

 

[zombiess]

How do you like that DNM fork so far?
I don't care about offroading, just regular commuting.

I don't off road either, haven't tried it on a bike at least. Fork is awesome on the street. I don't have much to compare it to since I'm not a mountain bike rider, but my Diamondback recoil comp came with an OK fork. The DNM makes the fork (some sort of Rock Shox) on the Diamondback feel like a Walmart fork. This entire bike makes the $750 Diamondback feel cheap suspension wise and it rides nice since it has entry level decent parts on it.

 

[iovaykind]

zombiess, is there a bearing where the bottom bracket meets with the swingarm? And am I correct in assuming that the the swingarm comes in two pieces and once secure onto the bottom bracket, the bolts in the swingarm keep the two pieces together?

 

[1KW]

How does it compare to your infamous 20" build