Well Elijah came to me with a cool idea, “my Banshee needs more power”. So he had already started roughing the motor into the frame. He needed me to make it solid and functional.
So stated out by making the lower frame rail giving me a solid base. The oil pan needed to have more room than the original motor, so that was pretty straight forward to make happen. Then I started making the engine mounts. Starting with the rear lower mount. The engine needed to be suspended in order for proper chain alignment. This was tricky. I left one of the motor mounts Elijah made in place, he had the alignment pretty close. While lifting the motor from below and suspending it from above, I managed to make the right side motor mount which also needed to be removable so the engine could be taken in and out. It was quite the balancing act. Once that was done it was on to the left side mount which could be stationary. My chain alignment was good and the rear lower mounts were done.
For the rear top mount I was able to line it up with the upper frame. I drilled a 7/8″ hole in the frame and used 7/8″ tubing to fill it and make the motor mounts. I had to sleeve the 7/8″ tube with 7/16″ tube in order to have a snug fit with the engine hardware. This also helped fine tune the alignment. I drilled holes in the 7/8″ tube and plug welded the 7/16″ tube inside of it. So at this point I have top and bottom mounts done.
I then switched over to the top of the frame. I needed to connect the front and back halves while still having room for the larger engine and room to remove and install the motor. I attached the new tubing using slugs to create a lap joint and placed gussets and cross-members in oder to strengthen the new geometry.
Finally I needed the side motor mounts. The left side was to be stationary, because to engine comes out the right side of the bike. I started with the left side making motor connecting points out of the 1″ tubing I was using for the frame. I bolted those the the motor. Once they were on it was simply connecting the points together and to the frame. On the right side of the bike the side mount needed to be, you guessed it, removable. So I made mounts out of 3/4″ solid stock and drilled and tapped them. These got welded to the frame. Then from there it was just like the left side, time to connect the dots.
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