2001 Giant AC1 DH bike build "Hawaii"

[broke]

Here is bike I bought!
Bike review: http://www.mtbr.com/cat/bikes/bike-full/giant/2001-xtc-ac-1/prd_355645_95crx.aspx

I have been driving my girlfriend crazy reading endless-spere for the last month.(all day everyday)
I picked up a 2001 giant Ac1 down hill bike for $400 for my build hard to find cheap DH bike in Hawaii.
I wanted to put the batteries in the frame.top tube 12 inches - bottom tube across 12.2 inches -down tube 8.5 inches- front down 2 inches.
I really wanted to get some real power with a Crystalyte HT3525 But I live in Hawaii and hobby king does not ship to me (If you know of any place I can order Lipo please let me know? Does amazon I saw some Lipo on there but I dont know if they even will ship to me or Witch ones to get. ( I dont want to buy junk)

So now my thinking is a em3ev kit (Mac).
Im going to use the bike for getting to work. 4 miles with 1/2mile 4% grade hill on the ride home.
I want to order:
Motor: 8T/10T what you guys think for 4% grade?

Batt: 50V 12.3Ah Samsung Triangle Pack (11.7Ah & 16.5Ah Option)
- Cell Type: INR18650-29E (16.5Ah, 825Whr) I went with this batt cause I think it will fit in my bike tiangle But cell man said If I run it with a 30a controller I will only have 30 min of Batt time? what do you guys think?

Controller: Type: 9 fet 30A (36-75V, IRFB4110) I went with this because I wanted to maybe use later if I could find a way to go to lipo in Hawaii. but maybe it would be better to go with 25a 3077 controller? will I loose alot of low end torque? will I gain more miles? I think 40amps would be nice but cellman said it would not be good for the batt?

Wheel: Type: 26" Alex DX32 what do you think of this wheel over the alex dm24? is it worth it to upgrade spokes from stock?

Arm: Grin Tech Rev4 Rear Torque Arm do I really need to spend 40 on this or is it possible to build from home depot parts at home?

There were two chargers for this batt. is it worth spending more to buy a charger that limets charging to 90%?

I want the Bike to ride my 10 miles round trip to work without peddling. With peddling a little I would like to get around 15miles, if I want to go to a friends house after work. I would like to ride around 25mph on flat and at least 10mph uphill without peddling 4% grade hill 1/2 mile maybe mix of 2% hill rest of the ride home.
This is the best forum I have found and my first post, any help would be great! I just want something to cruise around on hitting some light trails going down or up stairs just basic getting around town bike.( Honolulu has very bad roads and traffic!)

 

[mark5]

It was June 2012 when I bought lipo from Hobby King's US warehouse. USPS parcel post to Hawaii. It would be too bad if it's true that they won't ship to Hawaii any more.

 

[broke]

yep I talked them online its a no go.

 

[mark5]

Just tried going through the steps to order a couple 6S lipo packs. You have to make sure the packs come from the US, not International, warehouse. Otherwise you'll get some long message like
"Unable to ship this parcel to your country due to size/weight.
Your order is either too large, or too heavy for shipment to your country.
Please see the table below to understand what's permitted by your countries postal system."

and a long list of shipping options, none of which will be USPS. If you get the packs from the US warehouse you get USPS shipping options.

 

[waynebergman]

I am not sure if this will work or not but may be worth a try for you to squeeze a little more space out of that front triangle for your batteries. If you look at your shock for rear suspension duties there is a reservoir on it. This reservoir faces the front of the bike and it looks like it may give more space if you rotate the shock 180 degrees so this reservoir is facing backwards. I have the same bike as your but maybe a different year as my regular pedal bike, not electric as of yet and I have thought about this in the past thinking if I ever did a conversion to this bike this rotation of the shock may help clear up some space for batteries. So just to be clear I am NOT saying turn the shock upside down, I am thinking about spinning it so the reservoir faces the back of the bike. On my bike I have the Rock Shock that would need the little red knob (for dampening adjustments) trimmed down in length so it could fit into this rotated position.....not sure if you have the same "Rock Shock" shock in your front triangle as mine or not. Good luck with your conversion. And also I thought I would mention that bike is a cross country bike not a DH. The bigger than stock front forks you are running may be fun on the steeper decents but it is still seems to me like a cross county bike with big forks.

Good luck with the build I hope it all goes well. With forks like you have it is a trail bike so I would say go for the 10t mac especially if you are only running a battery pack that you will fit into that front triangle. If you use this bike in the trail with the mac it will climb OK even on 50 volts but you can not fly over stuff like on a reg XC or DH bike or the motor will get wrecked.

 

[broke]

Thanks for the heads up on turning the shock around that was the first thing I did when I bought the bike. That pic is from the craigslist add when I bought it. When I looked up the bike before I bought it mtb.com said it could be used for dh but its ok im not planning to go off any eight foot drops and the bike doesnt seem very heavy (thats a plus)