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[NEW2elec]

Found this video from Edwin Olding showing his upgrade kit for his Surron.  Blurs the lines of E Bike and Motorcycle.

[Fran K]

Something just does not seem realistic.  Look at minute 4:54 there is no mud slush etc on the bike.  Look for a front fender.  No side plates, the rear fender, his back has to be a mess.

Can you really make 5 times more power without changing anything pertaining to the motor?  I am not an expert on all the parts.
main bike board
contactor
controller
what else? how many things are not changed?

The front axle sure seems kind of far forward, guess that is normal?

All that expense and effort and no studs in the tires.  You go down fast on ice, just car studs will allow a rider to get across icy patches without going sideways flat quick.  Real studs or screws will give more traction than normal dry conditions and perhaps even more than paddle applicable surfaces.

Think what you want for an adult off road motorcycle front rim 1.6 to 1.75 wide by 21 inch.  The rear 2.15 or 2.50 by 18 for off road and 19" for track.  It is getting close the triple clamp isn't bicycle kind.

[TheRan]

It's about double the power, from 6kW to 13kW, dunno where he got 500% from. He swapped out the controller along with the battery which has a higher amp limit than the stock one as well as a higher voltage (which lowers the amperage for the same wattage). That's all that's needed really, you could do the same with a Zero and turn an S into an SR (although the motor would overheat quicker). The fork is made for mountain bikes and that amount of offset is typical because the crowns have less offset than most motorcycle forks. The wheels are an odd size with 19" rims front and rear but with the chunky tyres it comes out to around the same diameter as a 26/27.5" bicycle wheel.

[caza]

I disagree that this blurs any kind of line. The Sur-ron is an electric dirtbike, before you've done any upgrading. It uses a bunch of mountain bike parts to save on weight and cost, but it's still just a dirtbike.

These upgrades are getting pretty popular for the sur-ron, and while I can see why, at a certain point it feels like you should have just bought a better bike.

That battery and controller together is $3000, the bike alone is $3500. By the time you upgrade all the cheap mountain bike parts, like the forks, brakes, and tires, you're creeping awfully close to bikes that are just much better out of the box. I saw one sur-ron owner who had spend $10k total. A that point I would personally rather get something like a cake, electric motion, ktm freeride, zero fx, etc.

As for it being realistic, I think the 5x claim is inaccurate, but he's probably comparing peak watts put through the motor. The motor itself doesn't know or care if you put more power into it, which is all this upgrade is doing. What we do know is that he's putting more power than the motor was designed/rated for, and this may or may not shorten the life of the motor depending on how hard it is regularly ridden, and how conservatively the motor was rated.

I don't think the sur-ron has a contactor. Most bikes in its price/power range do not.

[TheRan]

A good thing about the removable battery is it will be easier to sell the stock one on to someone else. Those are $1600 from Surron so I think you could probably make back at least half of the $1800 that the new battery would cost. Or just keep the stock battery and cut the power a little, apparently it's good for something like 11kW. The controllers are only $700 so you wouldn't make back all that much by reselling it, but every little helps. I think the upgrade could be brought down to under $2k.

As for it being realistic, I think the 5x claim is inaccurate, but he's probably comparing peak watts put through the motor. The motor itself doesn't know or care if you put more power into it, which is all this upgrade is doing. What we do know is that he's putting more power than the motor was designed/rated for, and this may or may not shorten the life of the motor depending on how hard it is regularly ridden, and how conservatively the motor was rated.

I don't think the sur-ron has a contactor. Most bikes in its price/power range do not.

More power in = more power out, unless there's a significant efficiency loss due to heat at higher power levels the output power should rise at close to the same rate as the power input. Unless I'm confusing it for a different bike the Surron has a breaker under the battery compartment lid, looks just like a regular white one you'd find in a Euro mains breaker box (although obviously different specs).

[caza]

Yeah that's what I was saying, the controller puts more power in, you get more power out, the motor doesn't care it just complies.

Does it have a breaker, or a contactor? They are different.

That's a good point about reselling the stock components. I wonder how easy it is to find a buyer since I'd imagine most people looking would rather upgrade at that point.

[TheRan]

What I'm saying is if he really was putting 5x the power in then he'd be getting about 5x the power out, but he's actually getting about 2x. Whether you're talking about power put into the motor or power coming out it doesn't really matters, the numbers will be pretty much the same.

It's just a circuit breaker, rated 230v 100A so I assume good for the 13kW. At least it doesn't look like the upgrade kit includes a replacement. I think it's more intended as a shut off for when working on the bike (they might even recommend flipping it when swapping the battery) and in case of shorts.

https://lunacycle.com/sur-ron-replacement-circuit-breaker/

As for selling, I imagine there are plenty of people happy with the stock power and with the relatively short range they'd be willing to pay another $900 or whatever to ride for twice as long.

[caza]

Ok yeah I'm with you now.

Most breakers blow well above the current they're rated at, but I wouldn't be surprised if heavy riding with that setup pops that breaker. That said I don't think most people ride these at full throttle for long periods at at a time so it would probably be rare for it to actually happen.

They're probably saying 5x the power because the bac 8000 is capable of 32kw peaks, which would be over 5x the 6kw stock rating.

But the video description says "over 13kw"  Even with the battery at it's theoretical max, 84v fully charged at 300a, that's still 25kw, and we know it's never actually going to hit that. All that said, it's still an impressive upgrade.

[NEW2elec]

Caza, the Surron has an optional bicycle peddle attachment.  You could then remove the battery (easy) and controler (more effort) and have just a (heavy) Mt. Bike.
With this upgrade I'd like to see if there is anything short of a FX that could hang with that bike over the road.

So yeah blurred lines.

[caza]

The pedal kit is so that hooligans can pretend they have a street legal bike and try to fly under cops radar, it doesn't pedal well and isn't meant to actually be used. It's lipstick on a pig.

I could slap some pedals on a trail 90 if I was motivated to, but it's still a motorcycle.

I think with this upgrade there are bikes that are pretty close. The cake ink is 11kw, compared to this 13.5 that's not a huge difference. If cake is advertising nominal instead of peak then it's more powerful. Same thing with the Czech Drill One, 15kw peak. There's a  14 kw kuberg ranger. And a few others I'm forgetting. And all of these bikes have better brakes, suspension, tires, etc than a sur-ron with just these upgrades. It's no secret that the Sur-Ron is by far the value leader in this space though, there's nobody really competing with it at its price.

[Starpower]

Sun Ron is the value leader until you get to 8kW and above and then they start eating dust.

[caza]

Right, but that's what "value leader" means. For 3K, there's nothing else that comes close. For $3k + 3K of upgrades, still nothing else comes close. Once you get above that you're not in "value" territory, you're up there with big, expensive, established brands like Zero.

[NEW2elec]

One more from a guy with the same or similar setup.  Shows it going over 85 MPH and in the comments section he says he has pulled over 80 100s of times without killing his motor.  Your results may vary.
From Jack Cecil :

[caza]

That's pretty good. At that rate, even in the motor does burn out eventually it's probably a worthwhile investment, a replacement motor is $600. And I doubt most people will be pulling 80 on a regular basis.

[NEW2elec]

Well now it looks like they have a full cross over true electric motorcycle.  Less specs than an Alta but dirt focused for sure.
I give you the Sur-Ron Storm Bee.
From the Youtube channel Electric is Better: