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Just to chime in here. dmartin, you have done a great job both in your build and sharing your information. Even us old farts learn a thing or two.

Keep it up

Jim

Both my local stations are listed.

This article pertains to cars, a different animal than a motorcycle or small engine.

Most motorcycle manufacturers suggest 93 (premium) octane or higher. Ice bear recommends 91 octane or higher by the owners manuals. I have seen many scooters with a sticker by the gas fill saying 92 or higher. The bigger issue is ethanol, esp if the scooter sits for long periods of time. Around here we can still get non-ethanol premium fuel, the pumps are marked, For use in motorcycles, vintage cars and off road motors. As I said earlier, ethanol eats rubber, which is not a big deal in cars since there is very little rubber lines in the fuel systems now. Older dodge mini vans had an issue with the rubber fuel lines at the fuel filter, deteriorating from the inside out due to ethanol, they now use hard plastic lines. I use to be skeptical of this until a friend told me to try something, I took a small mason jar filled it with ethanol based fuel, then put a piece of rubber gates fuel line in it, put the lid on and let it sit on the self for 30 days. The rubber turned to mush. Now imagine those particles getting into the fuel bowl of your carb. And yes in the liquid state it will get past the filter.

I concur with all the above, esp the frequency of changing your oil. Remember you do not have a conventional oil filter, just a screen. Volkswagon used the same type system for years without issue. I will admit, I am not a big fan of synthetic oil except for use in transmissions.

In late 2011 Ice Bear modified the 300cc trike's reverse mechanism. They took the reverse out of the differential and put it in the motor case. At that time they added neutral and put the shifter on the right side of the trike by the rider's leg. By adding neutral they got a better throw of the gears to allow better engagement. They eliminated the cable operation of the shifter and change it to hard linkage. With the old cable system, the cable would stretch and prevent proper engagement of the gears causing the gears to eventually strip. If owners would have simply adjusted the cable correctly from day one and then periodically adjusted the cable they would not have had the issues they did. My 2010 has the differential cable driven reverse and works just fine.

Now the new models, with the shifter on the side, also has to be set up correctly during the PDI. That seems to be one thing that is over looked by some. If you look under the right side towards the motor, you will see a shift lever installed over a shaft coming out of the motor/transmission, looks just like a foot shift lever. Remove the bolt and make sure that the lever is pushed fully onto the shaft. Put some blue locktite on the bolt and reinstall and tighten. Now place the shift lever in reverse, adjust the shift rod to make sure you have the transmission all the way into reverse. Place the shifter in neutral and start the trike and check the reverse and forward. Readjust the shift lever for correct operation. I have noticed on a couple trikes that have been ridden with improper adjustment, that once the adjustment is done, sometimes you need to go just past the neutral notch to get into neutral, then drop the shifter back to the notch and it will stay in neutral.

What you are experiencing is tank slap. Due to the geometry of a trike, anything amiss in the rear will transfer to the handle bars. Make sure you have the rear tires spun balanced. Also remember you are on 3 wheels, not 2 or 4, and it does not handle the same, it is not a good idea to remove your hands from the bars.

Normal operation, at idle you should be getting 15 to 20 vac across the white and green wires (lighting circuit) and peak around 60vac at high RPM. Same is true of the yellow to green.