Projects What I have been working on for the last 5+ weeks...

Wow, How about saterday night at the drive inn.

 

Most excellent build. Very inspiring indeed. A few thoughts:

-Throw a barrel type b-b-q up front. I once saw a guy do that on a middie. He said that he spent so long at shows just hanging around, he wanted to be able to do something to pass the time!

-But seriously, I'm thinking that wheelie bars will be mandatory, unless you like looking at the sky!

-Only $6k for the batteries?!?! Would you please get us more information and a source? I'd be thinking easily twice that amount.

 

Looks like you guys are all going brushed dc ? Can you get more torque out of those than an AC setup with a cap bank for helpers ? I've seen several opinions on both, but most are theories...you guys actually have working vehicles. Good work !!

 

crazy

 

Series wound DC (brushed) motors are the hands down king of electric motor torque. They are not the most efficient, but at around 88%-93% efficiency they are still not too bad. Getting regneration during braking is difficult, but if you want raw torque, this is it. If a Hot Rod were made to be a 'Bad Boy' on the street, he's got the right idea.

Mike

 

<TABLE class=tborder id=post3196214 cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=6 width="100&#37;" align=center border=0><TBODY><TR vAlign=top><TD class=alt1 id=td_post_3196214 style="BORDER-RIGHT: #e5e5e5 1px solid">Series wound DC (brushed) motors are the hands down king of electric motor torque. They are not the most efficient, but at around 88%-93% efficiency they are still not too bad. Getting regneration during braking is difficult, but if you want raw torque, this is it. If a Hot Rod were made to be a 'Bad Boy' on the street, he's got the right idea.

Mike

Understood... Drag racing.. Which cells release energy the quickest ? I see some using Li ion, but would a D size nimh have a low enough IR to do the job ?
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You have to look at the Power-to-weight ratio. Take the cells open circuit voltage and multiply by the manufacturers recommended Max Discharge Rate to get the power. Then compare it to the specified weight. Typical NiHM cells discharge 5x to 10x (maybe some good ones at 20x) their Amp-hour rating. Li-ion cells can be found to discharge at 10x to 30x their amp-hour rating. If you compared two cells that could put out say 100 amps the li-ion batteries would weigh about half as much. You'de have to compare a really bad li-ion cell to a really good NiMH cell to get equal power to weight ratios. Right now Li-ion are the king of power to weight. Super caps have a higher power to weight, but they typically cannot store enough energy to even get you a 1/4 mile. To get enough energy in caps to make the 1/4 mile the number and weight you would need would make the car much heaver than with the li-ion batteries. Mike's on the right path with a light chassis (in a Model T) and minimal amout of batteries to keep the weight down. This is going to be a really fast machine. I like the idea of putting the BBQ pit under the hood. That or a rubber band stretched across wound up tight with a stick holding in in place, until the green lights drop ;-)

Mike

 

Well explained...thanks.

 

You are insane. But then, all great men are. I hate leaving fossil fuels, the pollution, the cost, the stink, but.... nothing good lasts forever- be very careful,youre doomed to become rich and sucessful....Mikey

 

Man you're having way too much fun still this year. It's snowing where I am already :-( See if you can get KD to tell us where he's getting his batteries. Is he still raiding the DeWalt packs? or does he have a supplier of the cells directly?

Mike W.

 

I'm gonna need a double flame suit...

Electric and VW!

A friend of mine did this in six weeks. While not in the same league or built for the same intention it is an early bug with a 85HP 144v electric motor. It went to the VW drags in Queensland Australia last weekend for a shake down.







Just that little motor gives double the hp of a standard dub engine and it can be realistically driven using only 3rd gear.

It's being developed as a commuter car, is fully road registered and now in general duties.

It will eventually be used as the tender vehicle for this...

 

Here's a link to an Aussie site for builders of electric daily drivers, includes lots of info on motors etc, and a forum. Most road registered conversions seem to use a lightweight grocery getter type car as the basis for the project, so building a T bucket or RPU with electric power would seem a logical step.

http://www.aeva.asn.au/

Cheers, Glen.

 

Hahaha, too funny. We were talking about you when I told him about the EV Pinto. The packs in the T are the DeWalt cells he tested in 2SSIC. I'll need to ask him where he is getting his new cells. I know he was talking about selling them so he might not give up the source.

 

chevymike,

Very excellent! I want one! When I started college (20+ years ago) I dreamed about building an electric Cobra kit car some day. Since then I have "on and off" thought about building various "cool" electric cars in my head.

It has always bugged me to no end why all energy efficient (high gas mileage and electric) cars are always super ugly or simple looking. Why can't we have cool looking electric cars? Well, you do! Great job! I can't wait to see some video of it buzzing around with the body on.

Mike

 

There was a neat Trad looking rod (a model A roadster) at the So-Cal speedshop the Friday before the 2000 LA Roadster show, that too was electric powered.
It was owned by a friend of Paul Wright.
It was a nice understated car with steels and all the familiar parts etc of a trad rod, but it had a very unfamiliar Hmmmmmmmmmmm when it drove off...

 

Anybody have any info on this one?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OxN8Bzio1kA&feature=related

It looks like it's running lead acid Trojan batteries - sorta like a big golf cart, which was what I was thinking of doing.

 

Well, here are the final build pictures. We finished up 9pm Saturday night, the night before the race. Overall everything went very well with the build. A couple things I would do different if I was to do it again but I am happy with the results. Here are the final build pictures. Thanks for all the support guys. You can find the race report in the new thread. Check out the gallery (linked on first page) for all the build and race pics.

http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=301104


Fiberglass motor cover.


Zilla Controller, Hairball interface adn reversing relay.


Interior done.


Batteries wired and charged


Michael Kadie backing it up for the first time with the body on.


Michael is happy with the results.


It was a ton of time spent on this build but in six weeks we made our goal. Check out the other thread for race pics and results.

 

So, what happened?

 

In the post above I put the link to the actual race day and results. I wanted to keep this tread about the build.

Here is the link again. http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=301104

Since then, we had another race and managed to get into the 7's with a best time of 7.84 and 60' times of 1.63. It's hooking up very well. I'll be getting some more build pics and info as we start some more work and get it street legal. Will be a little slower with info and pics since I am not dedicating 40+ hours a week to it.

Thanks for checking it out.

 

That is very interesting. Thanks for sharing the build with us.