Interesting comments.......Well the facts are that cranking a "V" twin of a larger capacity is the most difficult on a starting system. It might sound retarded but if the starter ring gear was mounted directly on one of the flywheels would probably be best, apart from the possibility of metal particles contaminating the engine oil over time. So getting back to the bikes....... I appreciate the contact from PapyG although i did try to contact them several times, so not sure how to address that........Anyway, it seems to me there are some issues that should really be addressed.........As much as the engine shock absorber ESA is a continuation from the factory spec item........I don't feel it handles the cranking and then engine fire up loads well at all.........It goes from full deflection one way to the other with a sharp bang as it compresses all the springs without too much trouble. This would be better off done away with all together, and instead have a shock absorber within the clutch or a cush drive in the rear wheel hub........This leads to the next item.......Running a triplex chain.......would be far better off with a belt drive, this then reduces a huge amount of weight but more importantly it means you can run the primary dry of oil.........Starter motors do not like running in a bath of oil........I was most surprised to find this, after the total failure of a similar system done years ago with the RTV's back in the mid 1990's........I stripped the starter on this one and came up with a seal of sorts that hopefully will keep the oil passing through the outer sealed bearing.........those seals are not good enough to stop oil passing through them........And lastly......the big one........It definitely needs some form of decompressor installed on the engine.........best is a solenoid in each cylinder head that lowers the compression on cranking enough to allow the starter to spin the engine much easier when you first hit the starter button.........I did this same thing last year building an all new 1200 Norvin with Terry's later type top end kits that do in fact have these decompressor ports in the roof of the combustion chamber, and uses a simple 12 volt solenoid used in later model Harley's........without those the engine simply would not crank over well enough........Hopefully some of these ideas may prove useful.........If this bike I have here was mine, i would carry out all these mods..........Cheers.........Greg.
