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I know it's probably the question you get asked the most with these but how do you find the torque issue, especially when using them on the road? And are they as bad as I was always led to believe on clutches?
ricky2slicky-
Never had a problem with either frankly. OK, they can be a bit tricky to get off the line if you don't get your clutch leverage right - my Blackbird car had a very digital clutch when I first built it, but changing the master cylinder size and the pedal leverage ratio changed things significantly. They're all fairly low geared - the Striker tops out at 118mph in top, bumping off the limiter, and the Fury Racer is geared to about 135mph max, although I've only ever got it to just under 130. That helps with the torque of course. As does the fact they're very light. The Striker weighs only just a tad over 400kg with fluids.
Never had any issues with clutches (apart from the on-off nature if they're badly set up) except for one occasion when the clutch on the racer started slipping when flat out in 3rd gear at Pembrey. Given that it was the original clutch from the crashed bike, and had done 2 seasons racing in a car, that didn't seem too bad. I swapped the clutch for a new one, and fitted slightly uprated clutch springs (+20% I think) and never had an issue with it again, although the firmer clutch springs do make the clutch a little bit harder to use.
They're certainly not hard to drive though. My father drove the Striker at an airfield day a few years ago. He's used to driving a Volvo, and his favoured rev range is between 1k-1.5k rpm. I always knew when he was approaching the house as the window frames used to rattle in sympathy with the labouring engine and its knackered bottom end. After a few practice starts, he was quite happy doing 1/8th mile drag runs (even left a few black 11s) and driving it around. The only issue was trying to persuade him to rev it to 12krpm rather than changing up at about 6.
IME the people who claim that BECs won't work generally haven't driven them.
Brommers
Sure, it's pretty straightforward. The engines are rotated by 90 degrees compared to how they'd be in the bike, so they're longditudinal with the exhaust sticking out on the LHS. This is the R1 lump in my racer in place:
You then replace the cog on the output shaft of the bike gearbox with an adaptor flange which you can bolt a propshaft to, shown in the picture below. It has a large gear fitted to it as part of the electric reverse system - bike engines don't have reverse of course (except in a few very rare cases) and racecars have to have a reverse system.
The two are then connected by a custom-made propshaft. Because there's no gearbox running down the transmission tunnel as there would be on a conventional car engine/box combo the propshaft is long, and so includes a centre bearing to help ensure it doesn't flail around too much.
That's it, basically.