I'd like to post an update to my experience. All my parts for the Magic Pie 4 and the Smart Pie (version 1 I assume as the site doesn't clarify) arrived yesterday. I ordered on a Sunday and the order arrived 8 days later. The piece I thought was missing from the order when I was waiting for it to arrive was the freewheel. I was notified that it shipped a day after the other parts but when my main order arrived I found it in one of the original boxes, so everything did ship together and nothing was missing. After about 8 hours I finished the two builds and I'm very happy with the results. I have posted photos of the two bikes below.
The front mounted Smart Pie is perfect for my partner's bike. It's small, light, unobtrusive, subtle, not obvious at all and it gives her just the perfect amount of power to help her up hills and whizz her along beside me on our bike rides. On 36v it tops out at 30kph on my GPS app on the flats. My Magic Pie 4 is very nice too, almost completely silent, has a nice amount of torque, has no trouble with small to medium hills and tops out at 32kph on the flats with the knobbly tires. It is running 36v too. I would love to go up to 48v but for now I have spent enough money on these projects. The Magic Pie 4 is very heavy. The bike is much heavier now and in some ways I'm envious of my partner and her Smart Pie because although before the build her bike was heavier, after the build her bike is lighter and easier to carry up and down stairs than mine. But I'm glad I have the Magic Pie as I will be taking my bike off-road on some light trails near the local lakes and will enjoy the bit of extra torque. It's also good to know I can push the voltage up for more power later.
Some things I don't like about the Pies: The rim is very narrow. This means the tube sits far from the inner surface of the rim and the valve stem barely pokes out of the hole. This means I can't get my compact hand pump on. There's not enough valve stem to grasp on. I can only inflate with a screw on pump fitment. The other thing I didn't like was that the cables are too long. The battery cable can be cut down (but I didn't for now) but the other cables are just too long and shortening them would be a lot more work. Still, too long is much better than too short. I just can't picture what kind of bikes they thought these kits would be fitted to. I guess they wanted to allow for every possibility, including carts and trikes. But my biggest concern is the super narrow rims.
GM Canada got the order right and aside from the lack of responses when I needed advice on which freewheel to order and when I wondered about the shipping delay I'm very happy with their service. They were kind enough to throw in a free USB cable for each motor and I really appreciated it. Everything was well packed and in good condition.
For anyone moving their own brake disc over to the Magic Pie here's something to keep in mind. Make sure the screws you transfer over are short enough not to touch internally. Mine were too long and they touched. This would have prevented the motor from turning. So I used washers to bring them back a bit and give enough clearance internally and the problem was easily solved.
I had no problem connecting the Magic Pie 4 to my laptop for editing the settings but I can't get the Smart Pie to connect or even get the USB cable to show up under ports. I have emailed GM Canada for advice on this but to be honest I'm not expecting a reply so maybe the experts here can help me?
