July 14th 2007, PIR - 11.466 @ 114.08 mph ET - best 60' 1.58 sec. Photo courtesy of Carol Brown (photogal@iglide.net)
"One of the scariest-fastest cars I have ever been in! White Zombie is a great name for that car...I got out I was probably White as a ghost and felt like a Zombie!"
(Quote from Derek Barger, a member of the Killacycle Racing Team, after his ride in White Zombie at PIR)
Motor: 'Siamese 8' dual armature with selectable series/parallel wiring. Photo by Mark Fowler.
Drive type: Direct drive. Electric reverse.
Driveshaft: Single piece all aluminum driveline from 'Inland Empire Drivelines'. Driveline loop.
Rear axle: Dutchman heavy duty Street-strip Ford nine inch rear axle setup with 31 spline racing axles. Detroit locker. Air shocks & traction bars.
In preparation for the July 13th & 14th races, we removed the 90 lb. steel differential:
Replaced the heavy steel Ford 9 inch differential casting with a 'Strange Engineering' racing style aluminum differential, dropping 28 lbs. off the car's weight. (below) Dan of 'Dan's Gears' with the stock steel differential still intact next to the raw aluminum Strange casting, as he gets ready to set up the new unit:
4:11 'Richmond Gear' brand gears pulled and changed to Strange Engineering brand 3:70 ratio:
Here's the new aluminum differential all set up and ready to go back into the rear axle housing:
Wheels & tires:Front - Eagle 5 spoke 13 x 5.5 alloys with 4 bolt Nissan rear drive offset. The front Nitto radials were dismounted (see below in the 'Carnage' section for the reason why we had to do this) and new 185/55/13 Pireli P7 radials replaced them.
Rear - Eagle 5 spoke 14 x 6 alloys with 5 bolt Ford front drive offset. BF Goodrich 'G Force Drag Radials' (24" dia.)
Batteries:852 lb. Enersys lead acid battery pack temporarily removed:
With both the back seat area pack and the trunk floor pack of lead acid batteries out of the car, the car was instantly 852 lbs. lighter! The spare pack of A123 lithium ion batteries from the electric drag bike 'Killacycle' was loaned to us for the Wayland Invitational III races (thanks to A123 Systems and the Killacycle team). It's hard to believe that this super compact sized 374 volt battery pack can belt out 1400 amps and has the same power as 850+ lbs. of lead acid batteries! (below) Tim Brehm and NW Handling Systems forklift tech Brad Allen install the lithium pack into the Zombie's trunk.
(below left) The incredibly powerful lithium pack is made up of 880 small 'Life Savers' sized A123 brand cells, normally found inside the battery pack of the 36V (10 cells) DeWalt cordless drills. This is a close-up of some of the hundreds of white cylindrical cells inside the pack. Each cluster of 8 paralleled cells has their own circuit board battery management system (bms). (below center & right) Two views of the airline carry-on suitcase sized lithium pack and its additional piggy-back pack (at the left end of the main pack) that ran the entire car, shown nestled into the Zombie's trunk.
Controller:Zilla Z2k 2000 amp controller with Hairball interface. Programable automatic series-parallel contactor control. Quick-pull emergency disconnect.
12 volt system: Custom 40 amp DC-DC converter. 16 ahr Hawker Aerobatteries 12V battery as the 12V system back-up.
Other Mods:
(1) Made new 175 amp Anderson pigtail to accept the lithium pack's 175 amp Anderson output pigtail.
(2) Created new aluminum flat plate (thanks to Marko Mongillo) and backing ribs to support the loaner lithium pack over the existing rear lead acid battery tray.
(3) Removed all previous high current cables, except the two positive-most cables at the rear twin Kilovac contactors. Reconfigured cables to parallel the contactors and accept the positive-most cable from the lithium pack pigtail.
Car weight: 1858 lbs. (calculated from carefully weighed removed & added items)
7-13-07 & 7-14-07 'Wayland Invitational III' PIR races. (Photos below by photo by Mark Fowler) A two man crew from the 'Speed records' show were at the Wayland EV juice bar on Friday during the day capturing all the pre-race action:
(below left) The NEDRA banner, captured in this photo by Mark Fowler, welcomed all interested into our pit area. (below center & right) A beefy PFC 50 Manzanita Micro high voltage - high current charger patched into the PIR mains juices up the stout A123 Systems lithium ion pack in the Zombie (center photo by Carol Brown):
(below left) White Zombie adorned with the action cam atop its roof stuns the burnout freaks as it boils out of the water pit. (below right) At the line in front of an excited crowd in the stands, ready to make a pass. Thanks to photographer friend Carol Brown for these great pictures:
Tim Brehm and Plasma Boy pose with the 11 second lithium powered White Zombie...note PB's cool T shirt!:
Saturday morning 7-14-07...'The Electric Breakfast' at the Village Inn. The Village Inn at 103rd & Stark in SE Portland is an EV friendly breakfast place that welcomes us each year. Below are few pictures that capture the flavor of this fun show & tell EVent:
Saturday evening 7-14-07 at the Wayland Invitational III races... White Zombie sets a new 1/4 mile record for a street legal EV with an 11.466 @ 114.08 mph pass! White Zombie is the first street legal electric car to run a sub 11.5 ET.
That record-setting 11.446 second run got us thrown off the track (a badge of honor) for being too quick! (below left) Tim seems pretty pleased to have broken the 11.5 second barrier for a street legal EV. (below right) The PIR track manager hands Tim Brehm the offical notice...White Zombie can't return to race until all the safety requirements for a sub 11.5 car are met...fire suit and roll bar time.
Anyone still think electric cars are slow?
(1) At the 7-13-07 Wayland Invitational III races, a stuck throttle at 110+ mph had Tim standing on the brakes as he reached for and pulled the emergency disconnect handle. (below left) Tim filed-down the front tires as he laid down 550 ft. of twin skid marks at the end of the PIR track (and perhaps in his shorts as well), destroying both front tires! (below right) PIR track officals told us it was the longest skid marks ever seen at the end of the strip!
(2) This one definitely falls under the 'We blow things up, so you don't have to' category...On the second night at the Wayland Invitational III races, something happened that has never happened before, when the Zilla Z2K motor controller had a major power section failure! Cafe Electric is known for building the most powerful and most dependable DC motor controllers in the world, and most all of the quickest EVs use a mighty Zilla controller. Unbeliveably, fellow Datsun 1200 enthusiast David Gonzales was videoing Tim in White Zombie and captured the moment when it happened! (below left) The initial controller failure destroyed an Albright SW200's top end contact head and sent black smoke out the front of the car. You can see the splattered black debris field just ahead of the car. (below right) None other than Rich 'Madman Rudman' of Manazanita Micro reacts and helps to get the wounded Zombie out of the line-up and back to our pit area. Thanks to Otmar, designer and builder of the Zilla, and NW handling Systems' truck van stock of forklift contactors on board, we were able to swap in another Zilla and repair the partially destroyed contactor on the spot...media cameras captured the whole scene. We had the car fixed within an hour and went out to the track and ran our quickest passes ever!
