# Race EV?



## Qer (May 7, 2008)

You can get a lot of power in an EV if you have the right controller and motor. Take a look at http://www.plasmaboyracing.com/whitezombie.php for a drag racer that's pretty darn quick. They're using a special built Siamese motor from Hi Torque Electric that I believe cost something like $6000 and a Zilla 2k-controller (peak current 2000 Ampere) that's unfortunately not produced anymore.

Tesseract (in this forum) and I are involved in a controller project where the first controller will be able to do 750 Ampere peak, which won't be even close to what you need, but we have plans of doing two bigger controllers, 1500 Ampere and 3000 Ampere, and they could be something for you. However that's future plans with a big emphasis on future, sorry. Not sure if there's any other controller that's currently in production that's good enough for racing.

Your main problem will be batteries though. Since you want to run races I'd say that your true Achilles heal will be the amount of kWh you can fit in the car. You'll have to go Lithium to get any range to speak of and that's where the real cost will be. Lithium batteries aren't exactly cheap and depending on how much batteries you need it will add weight to your car which probably will affect the ability to take the curves fast etc...

So building a racing car is definitely doable, the main question is if it'll be able to compete with the ICE's in the end.


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## mattW (Sep 14, 2007)

Welcome to the site Cro and nice pics!
Yeah that's definitely doable. I think it will probably be easier to go direct drive (with 1 or two motors) and keep the diff. That way you will be able to get the motor rpms closer to where they like to be. Another option would be a 4wd with two motors for the front/back. Doing separate motors for the two back wheels would probably require some tricky custom work mechanically. How long are the races (time and distance)? What are the class restrictions and what sort of budget were you looking at. AC has some significant advantages if you are willing to pay extra.


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## CroDriver (Jan 8, 2009)

mattW said:


> Welcome to the site Cro and nice pics!
> Yeah that's definitely doable. I think it will probably be easier to go direct drive (with 1 or two motors) and keep the diff. That way you will be able to get the motor rpms closer to where they like to be. Another option would be a 4wd with two motors for the front/back. Doing separate motors for the two back wheels would probably require some tricky custom work mechanically. How long are the races (time and distance)? What are the class restrictions and what sort of budget were you looking at. AC has some significant advantages if you are willing to pay extra.


First, thank you bought for the answers and welcoming!


Mostly I'm driving drift races and yust-for-fun track races. They can take the whole day with trainings and brakes. A range of 100 race km would be enough.

I want to have a "clean car" because I'm in the renewable energy business. I'm building wind, bio-gas, solar and geo-thermic power stations. So it dont't fit if I'm driving a car that is such polluting as the old BMW. I have also many new cars that I would like to convert if everything goes well with this old BMW.

There are no restrictions in drift races. I just have to build in a roll bar. My budget (for this car) is, let's say, about 20.000$ (but if necessary I will increase that if it's not enough for real high performance). This will be my first project car. If it works well, I will convert more cars. I'm an car and speed freak but I can't (and don't want to) drive high consumption ICE's any more. So EV's looks for me like the best option

4 WD is (in this car) not an option.


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## mattW (Sep 14, 2007)

$20 000 sounds like a realistic budget. 100km is realistic as well, especially if you have the chance to charge for short periods throughout the day. You could do something like a warp 11 or two 8" motors. Probably something like 200Ah thundersky cells (giving up to 1000A peak). The controller would be the hard thing since THE performance controller just went out of production leaving a bit of a vacuum. If you could get a second hand Zilla that would be awesome. Some people have been talking of doing twin controllers with twin motors to handle the power so that could be an option too. If you had two controllers at 144V pulling 500A each that would give you 144kW, but you would have a lot of torque available. Hopefully that's enough to get you started.


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## DavidDymaxion (Dec 1, 2008)

I like your goals! You would be the first EV drifter I would have heard of.

I too have a 300 hp gas car that I race, am I'm currently converting an old Porsche that I hope out accelerates the gasser.

A few cautions:

Unfortunately some companies will make ridiculous claims of how well their product performs (downright fraudulent in some cases). It is better to find a car that has actually run the kinds of times you are interested in, and copy that.

Also beware the subjective impression. There are folks that call their EVs "peppy" or even "fast"... Maybe compared to a Prius, but would be considered slow by a sports car person.

As a really rough measure of performance:

Amps * Volts / 2 = power

(The " / 2" is for losses and voltage sag.)

For example:

500 Amps * 144 Volts / 2 = 36 kw ~ 50 rwhp

That's adequate transportation, but a long ways from a sports car.

1800 Amps * 336 Volts / 2 ~ 400 rwhp

Ah, now we are talking, and this is about what the fast NEDRA racers run.

You won't be able to build a car that goes fast for 100 km for $20k, unless you finagle a sponsorship for good lithium batteries.

Here are some performance EV websites:

http://www.proev.com/

http://www.plasmaboyracing.com

http://www.2ssic.com 

http://www.acpropulsion.com

http://www.teslamotors.com/

http://www.currenteliminator.net
http://www.currenteliminator.net/S10.htm

http://www.killacycle.com/

A few final comments: Since drifting involves extended times of high power at modest (for racing) speeds, I think it would be a really good idea to use a transmission. Also, lightness is free power -- lightening the car can be cheaper than buying more expensive batteries.



CroDriver said:


> First, thank you both for the answers and welcoming!
> 
> Mostly I'm driving drift races and just-for-fun track races. They can take the whole day with trainings and breaks. A range of 100 race km would be enough.
> 
> ...


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## CroDriver (Jan 8, 2009)

DavidDymaxion said:


> I like your goals! You would be the first EV drifter I would have heard of.
> 
> I too have a 300 hp gas car that I race, am I'm currently converting an old Porsche that I hope out accelerates the gasser.
> 
> ...



Thanks a lot for the reply and the links! They help me a lot!

So, now I'm relay total into this race EV stuff. I already done some research but I still don't get some things straight.

Some people are talking about 1000-2000A and up too 500V. How is that possible if it's claimed that even the biggest motors are running on 120V and 500A?! http://pioneerconversions.com/Motors.html Could someone explain that to me? 

I decided to build a battery pack out of these (the seem to be quiet the best on the market) http://yhst-65588400267125.stores.yahoo.net/prdeki.html

Budget is unlimited now  I realy want to get this done the way I like it to. 

The controller will be custom made by a company here in Croatia.

I still want to do some research before ordering the parts and start the conversion


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## major (Apr 4, 2008)

CroDriver said:


> Some people are talking about 1000-2000A and up too 500V. How is that possible if it's claimed that even the biggest motors are running on 120V and 500A?!


Hi Cro,

It is called machine abuse. A lot better than people abuse. One electric race team's motto "We break things so you don't have to". Most of these guys push the machines (and batteries) way beyond design specs. And suffer consequences. Frequent rebuilds. Most of the successful electric racers have been at it for years or decades. They learn from the charred remains of zorched machines and rebuild them a little better each time.

That's my take on it,

major


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## CroDriver (Jan 8, 2009)

major said:


> Hi Cro,
> 
> It is called machine abuse. A lot better than people abuse. One electric race team's motto "We break things so you don't have to". Most of these guys push the machines (and batteries) way beyond design specs. And suffer consequences. Frequent rebuilds. Most of the successful electric racers have been at it for years or decades. They learn from the charred remains of zorched machines and rebuild them a little better each time.
> 
> ...


Sounds logical to me but I still don't understand how the difference between claimed and the power in some projects is such huge. I mean, there is not that much to modify on a DC motor... 

Which motor would you guys recommend me if the price is no problem? It can also be two motors (like in plasmaboy's zombie project).


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## PhantomPholly (Aug 20, 2008)

CroDriver said:


> Budget is unlimited now  I realy want to get this done the way I like it to.
> 
> The controller will be custom made by a company here in Croatia.
> 
> I still want to do some research before ordering the parts and start the conversion




For only $500,000 I'll deliver your car as specified. 

We will start with a Tessla, and put your BMW body on it...

Hehe - don't ever say your budget is "unlimited." I alone can think up more ways to spend your money than you can imagine enough "0's" to pursue. The rest of these guys will catch on quickly enough!



Good luck!


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## CroDriver (Jan 8, 2009)

PhantomPholly said:


> For only $500,000 I'll deliver your car as specified.
> 
> We will start with a Tessla, and put your BMW body on it...
> 
> ...


I wrote that the budget is "unlimited" because everyone is soooo focused on $$$. I just want to see what is possible! I'm willy to spend 50.000$ on a realy fast EV but there are not many high performance conversions so it's hard for me to find all the needed information. I would like to see what components experienced EV builders would choose if they would have a big budget. I would like to build it good from the beginning and not to rebuild it afterwards because I'm not happy with the conversion. It's cheaper to build it with high quality parts from the beginning than to rebuild it three times...

I know that my plan is very ambitious but I think that I can make it


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## judebert (Apr 16, 2008)

Running a DC motor over its _rated_ voltage is not generally considered a problem. There are steps you take to avoid problems, such as advancing the brushes. The aforementioned racers often run those 120V motors at over 200V!

An additional problem, not often considered, is long-term use. You can get away with high voltages if you don't intend to do it for long. An hour is considered the maximum overvoltage period. If you intend to run longer than that, you'd better add additional cooling.

AC systems also run at higher voltages. They're built for it. Check out Metric Mind for information on AC systems, and look at ProEV.com for an AC autocross racer. 

In fact, Lithium batteries at high voltages are a perfect match for an AC propulsion system. Better yet, your race probably calls for a good deal of braking, and AC systems often include regenerative braking, putting some energy back into your batteries.

I'd definitely give AC a look.


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## CroDriver (Jan 8, 2009)

Oh boy, how interesting to find this topic 9 months after I started it... 



Qer said:


> You can get a lot of power in an EV if you have the right controller and motor. Take a look at http://www.plasmaboyracing.com/whitezombie.php for a drag racer that's pretty darn quick. They're using a special built Siamese motor from Hi Torque Electric that I believe cost something like $6000 and a Zilla 2k-controller (peak current 2000 Ampere) that's unfortunately not produced anymore.
> 
> *Tesseract (in this forum) and I are involved in a controller project where the first controller will be able to do 750 Ampere peak, which won't be even close to what you need, but we have plans of doing two bigger controllers, 1500 Ampere and 3000 Ampere, and they could be something for you.* However that's future plans with a big emphasis on future, sorry. Not sure if there's any other controller that's currently in production that's good enough for racing.
> 
> ...


Unbelievable how much the DIY EV world has changed in the past year. And I can't believe how much I have learned about EVs, motors, batteries, controllers, general EV technology...

And what's most important - my car will probably drive on its own next week for the first time, with all my goals accomplished 

I just want to thank this community, all this wouldn't be possible without the info and help I found here!

I will make a big party when my car is finalized, everyone's invited


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## 280z1975 (Oct 2, 2008)

CroDriver said:


> I will make a big party when my car is finalized, everyone's invited


Be careful, some of us are just a short flight away  ... we want to see photos and videos when it's done!


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## icec0o1 (Sep 3, 2009)

I've been a lurker here but this thread has me coming out of the shadows. I'm glad you didn't give up on your conversion. Please post the final specs and if you can take images and videos, that would be awesome.


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## Sutitan (Feb 23, 2009)

Just curious. how do you plan on putting all this power down. are you going the direct drive route?

Im so excited to see this thing almost be ready. I cant imagine how you feel.


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## CroDriver (Jan 8, 2009)

Sutitan said:


> Just curious. how do you plan on putting all this power down. are you going the direct drive route?
> 
> Im so excited to see this thing almost be ready. I cant imagine how you feel.





icec0o1 said:


> I've been a lurker here but this thread has me coming out of the shadows. I'm glad you didn't give up on your conversion. Please post the final specs and if you can take images and videos, that would be awesome.


Here's the build thread with a lot of photos:

http://www.diyelectriccar.com/forum...-moto-ev-project-28287p11.html?highlight=moto

I exceeded my photobucket bandwidth limit. I have to pay 25$ so you can see them again 

I'll do that tomorrow 

Some images can also bee seen here:

http://s1003.photobucket.com/albums/af153/CroDriver/?start=380

The photos are messed up here, some are with the ICE engine inside.



280z1975 said:


> Be careful, some of us are just a short flight away  ... we want to see photos and videos when it's done!


You're welcome


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