General motor & Replacement motor thread

[ehfour]

With all the discussions in the Heckler & Relay threads, I thought it would be best for all of us to have a thread around our motors and replacement units & ways to preserve our motors


Couple of questions and thoughts that cross my mind, I'm by no means an expert with the Ride 60

The motor seems to be optimized for 70-80rpms- anything below that the motor seems to "chug along" and anything above it feels like you in "too high" a gear



What Version Motor? Ver. 2.0

What power mode do you ride in for your typical rides?
70% Green / 25% Blue / 5% Pink
AVG Ride:
635M Climb
13.5Kms

How often are you checking your Engine temps?
Checked on my last ride- Highest I've seen 39C- After a 30 min FSR climb

Fazua site lists

Operating temperature

-5° to +45°C

Have you been riding in the wet?
General Wet- not pouring rain

 

[Al-ec]

With the UK winter I've been riding in nothing but the wet until very recently. Don't ride big stream crossings or submerge the motor/BB. Take time to clean and dry everything, and a really small amount of water does make it in into where that battery removal cover in but all the electrics are dry. (Haibike Lyke)
Agree about the sweet spot in cadence, and effort, particularly notice this in blue/pink modes. 80% + of rides are in green and use gear changes to try and keep consistent cadence /effort.
Really liking the support it gives without being dominant.
How are you measuring engine temp?

 

[ehfour]

@Al-ec

Im checking for temps via the Fazua app

 

[arTNC]

I'd say water...along with mud...is the biggest enemy of any of these motors, and when I say water, I mean an actual dunking in a stream or creek crossing. And I'll tell you what...it's even the evil of high quality dirt motorcycles, though it's not usually the motor unless you got deep enough to take in water into the airbox. Bearings, chains, sprockets, and any pivoting element on those dirt motorcycles take a beating. And when you consider that a dirt motorcycle probably has better water protection than our MTB's or EMTB's, it's just not that healthy for bicycles.

Even on my pedal-only MTB's, I avoided water and soupy mud as much as possible, and I carry that over to my emtb. I live in west Texas, but even here after a good rain, out local trail has inflicted some huge repair bills on customers' bikes in the aftermath. It's been noted here that most all of the quality motors we see in our emtb's don't have extremely tight seal design at the bearings and such. Don't know if they're trying to cut down on seal drag or what. I think the Bafang BBSHD that I used in an old Santa Cruz Bullit has better motor sealing than my Bosch CX Gen 4.

OP, on that part of the question concerning temps, riding modes, gearing, etc., I don't spend much time worrying about that. Not that I'm trying to abuse my motor, but if my Bosch motor in my Rail 7 is that fragile, then I don't want it because it isn't going to serve me that well. I do pay attention to trying to achieve the more optimum gear selection for the situation, but I don't baby it. Even after a nasty section where ideal pedaling and gearing took a back seat, the motor doesn't seem that warm or protesting.

I got spoiled by that Bafang motor, because you could lug that thing or wring it out, and in three years it never complained. My research indicated that overheating failures to the controller were almost always in applications where extreme weight...like in a utility application...was involved. That BBSHD is a stout motor. Don't get me wrong. I love this Rail 7 and Bosch motor. I ride mostly in Turbo mode in some fairly challenging terrain. Only time will tell.

 

[ehfour]

@arTNC - Agreed about not monitoring temps, it was just something that I thought about as there have been a slew of motor replacements on the R60..which made me think if Fazua listed their operating range to 45C max, is there a correlation between taking it above and failures

 

[arTNC]

@arTNC - Agreed about not monitoring temps, it was just something that I thought about as there have been a slew of motor replacements on the R60..which made me think if Fazua listed their operating range to 45C max, is there a correlation between taking it above and failures

Yes, it's quite logical to associate extreme heat levels to motor failure as extreme heat is almost always the death of any motor, electric or ICE. But to really assess how it may play into an emtb motor failure, you'd really have to have the ability to measure it. For example in that Bafang motor I mentioned, some came up with a clever way to add a temp sensor in/on the motor case with a readout display readily visible. I think they were using some kind of simple aquarium sensor and display.

Without an ability to actually measure motor temp, will one really know if a motor failure was due to heat or just manufacturing error, or something else? I'd assume you'd know if heat was the issue after a motor tear down after failure, but by that time it's a little late.

You may be more focused on a particular motor or motor series, but there are probably some similarities across the board for most of our emtb motors. Again mentioning the Bosch CX motor, it says something that their highly unlimited race version of that motor is based on basically the same limited CX motor. Bosch indicates that they only manipulated the software, controller, etc. to milk out more power. That speaks well of the design of the basic motor for it to handle more abuse than just the way it is delivered in most factory bikes.

That kind of tells me that you'd hopefully expect most manufacturers to design and provide a little margin of durability even if they don't make a race version of the same motor. Still, it is troubling when you hear quite a few failures from different manufacturers, but we don't always get a good, detailed analysis of what the failure consisted of.

 

[Al-ec]

Been checking temp in different scenarios when I remember and today after a long steep climb, 1 1/2 hrs into a fairly demanding ride, I clocked 44 degrees. It was hot, 25 degrees, humid. Cooled to 31 degrees after a 4-5 mins descending Fazua Ride 6 (Haibike Lyke)

 

[ehfour]

So it looks like were on Ver 6.0 for Motors- If anyone else is keeping track or has recently got a new motor, please reply if you get an updated version higher than 6

 

[ehfour]

Any updates on Engine Versions?

 

[k17chy]

Mine has just gone back to the LBS. Only done 600 miles. Bike was perfect before my last ride. All a did was wash, dry and lube it before putting away. Come today and it won't turn on. Checked all connections and they are all clean and dry. No noise from motor at all. Bike now turns on but flashes 5 red LEDs meaning a hard ware fault somewhere.

 

[Pizzman]

Proper pre and post ride maintenance on a properly IP rated and assembled bike, water shouldn’t be a problem.

Cadence is more important than most realize.
Slow cadence, high power climbs in the wrong gear, cause massive amp draw. Heat, this causes. This shortens all the electronics lifespans. Especially controller and battery.
Proper gear choice , proper cadence, the motor operates in its designed parameters. Pulls designed amps. Dances uphill.

Heat shouldn’t be a problem ever. Something is wrong if it gets too hot.

 

[ehfour]

Well I finally had my first engine replacement

2500kms on the first one, through rain, snow, dust and summer heat- from Whistler to Bellingham

Have to say, it lasted way longer than expected and to be fair- I could have kept riding it, what the cause of replacement was down to the sliver metal gasket and engine cover has separated, which had no impact to power, but suspected that it would allow dirt and water ingress and grenade the motor

 

[ehfour]

As a comparison; it looks like Fazua is still rolling out updates to the H/W, obviously not telling us what they are doing- But from my reports, it appears they are on a new version of the motor type and the HW version is up to 7

Bike Motor	Motor Type	Hardware Version	Date Produced
Relay Motor #1	Motor F4	2	Aug 17/23
Relay Motor #2	Motor G4	7	Aug 03/25
Friends YT Decoy SN	Motor F4	5	Sept 11/24

 

[k17chy]

New motor and ring controller fitted. Picked up today. Total of 9 days in the LBS.
Santacruz heckler SL
F4 motor
Hardware 5
Firmware 2.5
Production date 2/24

 

[Levo-Lon]

Just done update 15 ..this is a big improvement over the 14 update.
Check Fazua update and install it.

 

[Al-ec]

Agree. If I think back, the last few upgrade have cumulatively made a decent difference

 

[k17chy]

First ride today since the motor was changed under warranty. So far so good. Managed 15 miles before the cold got to me. Don't know if it's the new update or motor but its so much quieter and smoother than before.

 

[irie]

First ride today since the motor was changed under warranty. So far so good. Managed 15 miles before the cold got to me. Don't know if it's the new update or motor but its so much quieter and smoother than before.

Don't wash it!