Ncc74656 said:
I can do about 28 to 31 miles an hour on the flat in these areas oh, I would like some more assistance, doesn't need to be maxed out power but just a little bit to help me get up to like 36 on the flat.
Are you actually continuously maintaining 31mph, and for how long? I ask because if it's just a peak you're seeing, it doesn't help us help you figure out how much *more* power you'll need than you already have.
If you have a smartphone, there are apps like Strava, etc., that can track your speed/etc over a trip, and show you a chart when you're done. The Grin Trip Simulator (a little different than the motor simulator previously linked) can help breakdown trip data from some sources to better understand what you're facing on your specific routes, to better plan for something that can do them reliably.
Not counting winds, that's an extra 5mph...but it is up in the air resistance domain where that costs a lot in power. I don't think any of the electrics on your bike will be able to do what you want; you would be better off starting with a whole new bike than modifying this one. (you could keep it as a backup, or sell it to pay for some of the new bike's parts).
Just so we have some idea what we're starting with (note that there's incomplete info, so I had to make assumptions, which could be wrong):
This is what the specialized page
https://www.specialized.com/us/en/turbo-vado-4-0/p/170303?color=264281-170303
says for the vado 4.0 regarding motor and battery; it doesn't say anything about the controller, which is what actually limits power, so we don't really know how much power it can produce...except that it says it can do 28mph, which typically takes around three times as much power as it says the motor can nominally handle. (meaning, you'd have to do a whole lot of contributing, two-thirds of the total power, if it was really only 250w controller...and if it's really a 250w motor, it'd probably cook riding it at three times that power level for long enough, because it's almost certainly a small geared motor inside the frame and these may not shed heat very well; it looks like a plastic body around the area, with some vents).
Motor
Specialized 1.2, custom Rx Street-tuned motor, 250W nominal
Charger
Custom charger, 42V4A w/ Rosenberger plug
Battery
Specialized U1-500, On/Off button, state of charge display, 500Wh
Side note: If the motor itself is doing all the work, and it's actually around 28mph+, on the flats with no wind, it should take around 750-1000w to do this, and the 500wh battery would last from 30-45 minutes from full to empty. Does that sound about right for what you see?
Don't get too discouraged from the stuff below; it's not impossible to do what you want, just maybe take more than you expect, and some of what you'd probably like to do (but don't expect to) probably isn't possible until you go beyond bicycle territory.
I did some simulator stuff just to give you some idea of what it takes to do what you want; each simulation is linked below. They are not using what you have on your bike; according to the simulator, the best a low-power hubmotor system can do, with 100w human assistance (which is typical of many people's continous potential output), is around 20mph on the flats with no wind. (which matches my experience with an old 350w hubmotor system I used to use when I rode "normal" bikes).
https://ebikes.ca/tools/simulator.html?cont=C20&axis=mph&batt=B3614_PF&frame=mountain&autothrot=true&throt=100&motor=MSX_8T
Note that I'm using the simulator in hubmotor mode; what you have is a middrive going thru the bike's gears, so the actual power levels needed to do things are different...but theyre in the same ballpark.
A basic "default" setup (only upping to 40A controller and 48v battery to get this speed with that default H3540 motor) on the simulator that does 31mph.
https://ebikes.ca/tools/simulator.html?cont=C40&axis=mph&batt=B4816_GA
That shows that it can take, with 100w human assistance, 1000w motor power (1200w battery power) to achieve (so 1100w "load", to keep that speed, with typical MTB posture and bike style). So I'm guessing that since the pages I could find on the bike you have say it's a 250w system, you must be really sweating it out to keep those speeds up even with the motor.
A road bike in tuck position saves a couple hundred watts *and* gets a couple more MPH
https://ebikes.ca/tools/simulator.html?cont=C40&axis=mph&batt=B4816_GA&frame=road
The road bike in tuck with throtle reduced to maintian only 31mph almost cuts power needs in half, with only 770w load to keep the speed, vs 1100w.
https://ebikes.ca/tools/simulator.html?cont=C40&axis=mph&batt=B4816_GA&frame=road&autothrot=true&throt=92.4
Upping the voltage to a 52v battery gets 35mph, almost what you want, but the load jumps up to almost 1100w, in the tuck position!
https://ebikes.ca/tools/simulator.html?cont=C40&axis=mph&batt=B5220_GA&frame=road&autothrot=false&throt=100
The same thing in the MTB uprigth position doesn't even reach 35, only 33, and has a 1300w load
https://ebikes.ca/tools/simulator.html?cont=C40&axis=mph&batt=B5220_GA&frame=mountain&autothrot=false&throt=100
To get the 36mph, MPT upright, I had to go up to a 72v battery and turn down the throttle, and that's a 1700w load. On the flats, no wind. The battery is actually putting out 1900w, and the difference is lost as heat in the system (battery, controller, motor). That *difference* is almost as much power as your system is rated for *in total*....
https://ebikes.ca/tools/simulator.html?cont=C40&axis=mph&batt=B7223_AC&frame=mountain&autothrot=true&throt=76.6
The up hills I don't know if there's much to be done with oh, I can hold about 15 to 20 which is still way to Hell better than my regular bike but I don't think the bike can mechanically or electrically hold me up to anywhere near 30 + going up the steep hills
If they're steep enough, you'll end up needing what amounts to motorcycle power levels to go the 36mph you're after. Let's assume a 10% slope, and that you and the bike are only 220lbs (the default in the simulator). To do 36mph it would take about 4kw battery power, and about 3300w total load on the bike and you (assuming you're pedalling). That's several times, at least, what your bike can do now.
https://ebikes.ca/tools/simulator.html?cont=cust_999_999_0.0001_V&axis=mph&batt=cust_200_0.0001_80&frame=mountain&autothrot=true&throt=32.2&grade=10
I'm usually on the roads so it's not like I'm going through the grass, that helps. The wind is a real killer. I live right off of lake and it's not uncommon to have 18 to 25 mile an hour winds multiple days a week.
Keep in mind that each mph of headwind is like you are riding that much faster. Having a 25mph headwind while riding at 25mph is like riding at 50mph, for hte power requirements. It's going to take what amounts to a motorcycle, power-wise, to achieve that.
This simulation's parts are far in excess of what's needed, but it lets you see the power it takes to do the ~61mph you'd have to be capable of doing, power-wise, to go 36mph against 25mph headwinds; almost 10kw (10,000) of battery power, and 7800w of actual load (about 10 times as much power wasted as heat as your whole bike can "nominally" make now, per it's motor specification).
https://ebikes.ca/tools/simulator.html?cont=cust_999_999_0.0001_V&axis=mph&batt=cust_200_0.0001_80&frame=mountain&autothrot=true&throt=56
To do the hills *and* the headwinds...that's a lot of power. Assuming the same hill and weight and wind as above, it would take around 14kw battery power, with an 11kw load on the bike. (you might as well relax and stop pedalling at this point, you probably can't even put in 1% of what it needs to move under these conditions. :lol: )
https://ebikes.ca/tools/simulator.html?cont=cust_999_999_0.0001_V&axis=mph&batt=cust_200_0.0001_80&frame=mountain&autothrot=true&throt=61.6&grade=10
Another few thoughts, concerning battery size (not accounting for a bunch of things you'd actually have to, like resulting total weight, battery capabilities, etc):
The battery you have now, if it were capable of this kind of power (it's not), would only last 500wh / 14000w = 0.03 hours, about two minutes, which at 36mph actual road speed would be about a mile. Let's assume you need to actually go somewhere, say, 10 miles away, and come back, so say you need 20miles of range (not coutning possible detours, etc); you'd need about 20 times the battery size you ahve now. I don't think you can fit a battery 20 times the size of what's on that bike on a bicycle-sized/shaped bicycle.
Just some food for thought, to show what it may take to do what you want, so you can figure out if that really is what you want.