Step 3Connecting the Motor to the Drive shaft
iImage Information

Since the 1982 Turbo is a shaft drive, I had to put a jackshaft and belt drive to turn the drive shaft already on the bike. You really should use a conventional chain-driven bike for conversion. The motor goes in sideways and the drive sprocket just goes right on the motor shaft; much easier (but I already had this bike). Since the drive-shaft to rear wheel was about 2.8:1 ration, I used a 2:1 ratio on the jack-shaft to get an overall ratio of ~6:1. This ratio will be good for mid range power and overall speed, but DC motors have such high-torque at the low end, it will be a bit overpowering for the drive shaft. I turned the controller down to min current and min acceleration.
The only "engineering" part is figuring out where to attach all of the brackets & supports for all of the other components; I used only existing holes on the frame already. It's strictly trial & error.
I see you asked this question in the comments under another step too and no one has answered. I believe no question is a bad question if you don't know the answer, and if you are afraid to ask you may never learn. I'm just sorry you had to wait till now to get a response which you might not even see. (I'm not sure how the notifications work on this site)
There is no transmission so no shifting. In this project the motor is directly connected to the drive shaft by a belt that looks similar to the ones used on Harleys. The author suggests using a chain drive bike as opposed to a shaft drive, for better efficiency. (The shaft must turn some gears back in the differential where it connects to the back wheel which makes it less efficient but also lower maintenance.) If you did this the motor would be connected directly to the chain by a sprocket. Still no shifting.
As for any compromise in torque or speed you don't need to worry. Electric motors have so much more torque than an internal combustion engine that special steps need to be taken to keep it from ripping apart the drive-train, and speed is determined by volts so it's all about the batteries you choose.
Hope this helps.
Thank you for answering this question. More towards your question; any time someone asks me a question or makes a comment about an I'be that I authored I get a notification sent to my appointed email (as your comment did). More so, I try to get back to them in a timely manner, but if the notice comes when I 'm not in the office and/or it gets lost during the holidays it may get deleted.
However, I often find that if somebody asks a question that is already answered in the I'ble itself by the time I get to answering them they have already finished reading through the I'ble completely and found the answer themselves; they just don't post the retraction of the question. Or, as in this case, usually some interested 3rd party restates the I'ble as an answer. Either way the systems seems to work.
I also know that if they have a question that cannot be answered in the I'ble, and no one has asked the question before in the comments section, most I'ble readers get an answer in a few hours (a day or two at the latest). Most I'ble authors are that diligent.
Accordingly, if the question is legit, and has not been addressed before (including in the comments section) and was not promptly answered by the author, most I'ble readers will hound us two or three times before we realize we over looked the question. This is acceptable as well.
In summary, I do appreciate you answering this readers question. However, if you read through the whole I'ble, and though all of the comments as well, you will have seen that his question was already answered [several times] in several places. If I didn't answer this question, and the reader didn't bug me for a reponse, and if nobody else bothered to answer him (as you did) chances are the question ahs already been asked and/or answered some where in the I'ble. Chances are it didn't get ignored on purpose.
Great instructable by the way. I'm now itching to try this myself. I have a very long commute so it wouldn't work for that, but I could always use it for short local jaunts.