Since the five-horsepower diesel engine I bought has been reallocated to the Benelli 2C project, the Retroblaster’s KTM frame was suddenly without a suitable engine. It occurred to me that the ATC250 engine I pulled out of the Benelli would be a great choice for the cruiser…if only it fit in the frame. Alas. (The bulbous counter-balancer housing on the front of the engine makes finding any frame to fit it rather challenging.) But wait — I might be asking the wrong question. Maybe I shouldn’t be trying to fit the engine into a frame. Perhaps the goal should be to make a frame fit the engine. I have experience re-configuring an engine cradle to adapt an engine to a frame it wouldn’t otherwise fit. It was easier than I expected and the result looked better than I could have hoped.
So, in the spirit of doing a swan-dive off a cliff into the unknown, I grabbed the recip saw and did some drastic cutting.
I can’t say I’m regretting my actions. Now that I’ve pivoted to this, I really like this concept. It’s pretty close to the original Yamaha Blaster I originally wanted to use. And unlike when it was in the Benelli frame, the ATC250R engine doesn’t need to be offset to get the sprocket lined up correctly. In addition, the thing could actually be fast enough with this motor to warrant the fat wheels and triple disk brakes I had originally imagined for this frame, rather than the set of smaller 16″ wheels I have.
In the words of President Andy Shepherd…
Plus, get this: the SRX250 swingarm, the KTM frame, the ATC engine — I’m putting all the red bits together. How trippy is that?