BLACKPIPES

HPI yeh

Whatever. Picked up a used HPI and put it on the Hobbit today, finally. I was going to write up a how-to but it was seriously beyond easy. Still dialing it in perfecto, but I hit 65mph on a slight down-slope… my previous highest speed on those same roads was like 61.5.

February 2012 edit for clarity: That 65mph wasn’t GPS’ed and I later realized my bike speedo was off by a few mph.

Will post more later once this thing is done… for now I guess.

I realized I’ve never shown the full intake/hose/carb setup on this. Next steps: Julian is adding some material to the top of a spare intake I have so I can grind it out suuuuuper big and smooth. I’m going to modify a spare reed block to open up the holes a bit, thin the bridge, and cut a carbon reed out of some reed material. Experiments.

HPI. This was so ridiculously easy to get installed and running… I’m not even going to bother talking about it. Flywheel cover doesn’t fit. Going to mod it to make it, though. I have some neat ideas for a pull-start mechanism, involving a thick disc mounted into the threaded puller holes and grinding a negative image of the pull-start cog into it. You’ll see.

Messy but functional, and it hardly matters under a side cover.

Put the light coil on, too, and installed a spider LED headlight from superbrightLEDs that the previous owner included with the setup. I already run a LED taillight, and they definitely light up. We’ll see how they look in the dark. I don’t ride this bike in the dark, really, so as long as I’m visible to cars I’m happy.

-ShaneB

Tags: hobbit. honda hobbit. hpi. ignition. project. build.