# Electric Crazyhorse Pinto



## Rook (Jun 5, 2008)

I love the Pinto. That was my college car. I used to take it on 2000 mile trips between Chicago and Seattle and it never let me down. I loved it too because it was a rare thing when something broke that I couldn’t fix myself. You just don’t see them around anymore and its good to see that familiar shape updated with electric technology. You get my vote!


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## electrabishi (Mar 11, 2008)

Rook said:


> I love the Pinto. That was my college car. I used to take it on 2000 mile trips between Chicago and Seattle and it never let me down. I loved it too because it was a rare thing when something broke that I couldn’t fix myself. You just don’t see them around anymore and its good to see that familiar shape updated with electric technology. You get my vote!


 
Thanks Rook, I was lucky that I found the only two Pinto's in decent shape that live in Alaska ;-) I'm sure there may be one more lurking about but I'm not worried about anyone buying it anytime soon to convert to electric. Unless of course we can make a really big impression at the track the rest of the summer 

Mike


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## Bowser330 (Jun 15, 2008)

your eValbum pofile says the pinto's range is 1 mile...Is it really only 1 mile?


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## electrabishi (Mar 11, 2008)

Bowser330 said:


> your eValbum pofile says the pinto's range is 1 mile...Is it really only 1 mile?


 
Nope, It'll do ~ 25-30 miles per charge (totally untested). I do drive it to work and home for a total of 15 miles. I don't dare harsh on the expensive races batteries. Pulling 1500A for 12 seconds on a full charge isn't near as bad as running them down to near the dead state.

It says 1 mile of the EVAlbum page because when I was trying to be smarty and put 1/4 mile or 0.25 mile it rounded up to 1 mile. In reality though 1 mile is about what we put on it when making a 1/4 mile run at the drag strip. Theres 1/4 mile down the track, 1/4 mile to slow down, and the 1/2 mile to return.... so yeah about 1 mile 

Mike


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## Bowser330 (Jun 15, 2008)

Thank you for the reply,

what do you think are the contributers to your 250wh/mile normal driving average?

tire width?
aerodynamics?
weight?
twin-motors?

Which brings another question up, are twin-motors less efficient than one larger 11" motor?

Thanks!


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## electrabishi (Mar 11, 2008)

250 wh/mi isn't all that bad for a road going EV conversion. That said however, attention to all the things you mention could improve efficiency. I need the tire width for traction on the all important launch at the drag strip. The aerodynamics and weight are things I can work on for hard earned minimal gains at the track. I made it as light as I could from the start without going titanium everything which would be lots of $$$ ;-)

The single bigger motor would be slightly more efficient (at one particular RPM), however it would have less of a dynamic range in RPM meaning I would actually have to have at least a two speed gear box which would eat up the very small gain in efficiency. I am actually able to get more power to the wheels for a longer period of the 12 second run down the drag strip by being able to switch between series and parallel motors. More torque per amp in series mode for the launch than the 11" motor, and more power draw from the batteries at the RPM we hit at the end of the track. With the power limit set by the Zilla, the series/parallel shift capability makes the two motor solution more efficient over the entire dynamic range of RPM we are running.

Mike


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## Bowser330 (Jun 15, 2008)

Thanks for the info!


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## ngrimm (Oct 19, 2007)

That's quite an impressive car. Great ET for the mph. Appears to hook up really well. My 2.3 turbo Mustang weighed less and the best I could get was 13.3 @ 103 mph with 25lbs of Holset boost. You got my vote.


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## Fourbrrl (Jul 28, 2008)

This MUST be karma...I just pulled my 73 pinto out of my barn, was gonna be a gas racer. AFTER I went to the drags this last weekend..I got to jonesin to build an EV dragger..then I saw yours. AMAZING !! that got me even MORE motivated. What was the cost for the build...I'm GONNA BUILD IT, I just NEED to get a price point for bugeting to do this. as far as aero, why dont ya just do away with the grille and cover that area and put a chin spoiler on it...wouldnt that help ? I have this 71 grabber with a 357 windsor and c-6 w/ 9" rear...3600 lbs. I think I couls sell the powertrain outta that one and get to work


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## TX_Dj (Jul 25, 2008)

ya got my vote, mike. Nice run! 

I do wonder if you'd get a better launch w/ smaller rear tires though, since you're direct to the differential, but I'm sure the taller tires help w/ the top speed. Have you experimented much on that?


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## electrabishi (Mar 11, 2008)

Fourbrrl,

We have $30K into the car. But if you have a nice 9" already built up, and race tires and roll bar already to go then there is some off the price. I'll try to copy our budget into this thread:
Zilla 2K 360V 2000A Controller $4,950.00 WarP9 9" Series Wound DC motor $1,700.00 TransWarP9 Series wound DC motor $2,750.00 Manzanita Micro 50A PFC-50 Charger $3,000.00 Dutchman MotorSports Ford 9" Rear End $2,455.00 New Wheels to fit bigger Ford Lug Pattern $250.00 BF Goodrich g-Force T/A 215-60R14 Drag Radials (two) $264.00 Calvert Racing CAL-TRACS traction bars $350.00 Three Larger Breakers $600.00 Enersys Genesis 12V 16XE batteries $5,400.00 #4/0 Cable and Copper Buss Bars $250.00 Accessory and SLI +12V DC/DC Converter $350.00 KiloVac 3000 Amp Main Contactor $1,000.00 Boday detailing and touch up $500.00 Diesel Genset running Veggie Oil for at track charging $2,000.00 Trailer for Hauling car to the track $2,000.00 Total $27,819.00


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## electrabishi (Mar 11, 2008)

TX_Dj said:


> ya got my vote, mike. Nice run!
> 
> I do wonder if you'd get a better launch w/ smaller rear tires though, since you're direct to the differential, but I'm sure the taller tires help w/ the top speed. Have you experimented much on that?



We started out with BF Goodrich g-Force T/A 215-60R14 Drag Radials and were getting 0.1 second better 60ft times, but we couldn't get trap speeds over 100 mph. So now larger tires and 15" rims, we lose about 0.1 sec on the 60 ft, but we still finish about 0.1 sec quicker on the ET as well as trap speeds over 100 mph. I think until we can keep the motors pulling longer on the tail end we'll need to keep the larger tires. The smaller tires launched real good but still felt like they were slipping slightly. The 28" tall and 10" wide Hoosiers do nothing but grab  kinda like the duct tape version of fly paper


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## Rook (Jun 5, 2008)

Electrabishi,

If you ever get a chance I’d like to see a video of your Pinto on the drag strip without competition. Just the car tearing down the strip. I’ve tried to show my friends video of electric cars in drag races, but every one is in competition with a loud gasoline engine. My friends are fooled by the noise and think that the electric car is making the same noise. I’d like to see, no hear, a video that demonstrates the difference.


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## electrabishi (Mar 11, 2008)

Check out Plasmaboy's site:
http://www.plasmaboyracing.com/videos.php

scroll down about 2/3's of the way down and look for a video named:
_White Zombie 12.65 @104 mph Woodburn Run (9-4-05)

even the sparks are quiet. Bu they had a camera down track that gets the second half of the run. Total quiet until it gets right up on you.

Lots of other cool videos there too.

Mike
_


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## electrabishi (Mar 11, 2008)

You can also Google for:
electric dragster site:youtube.com

and get all sorts of EV videos


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## electrabishi (Mar 11, 2008)

Got Dyno results posted:
http://www.dragtimes.com/1978-Ford-P...phs-15453.html

the raw plot from the Dyno is here:
http://www.halestechnical.com/Mike%2...no%20Chart.JPG

The machine couldn't read my tach output so I had to correlate the RPM data from my controller with the speed data from the Dyno to be able to calculate the Torque which is equal to HP x 5252/RPM

Thanks Will for putting up the Youtbe of the dyno run.
I thought the shift from Series to Parallel on the motors was going to rock the dyno trailer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tt0LSml0JTI

Some notes on Horsepower. I fully expected to see 450 HP. But some things conspired to keep it from happening. Because there were plenty of other folks wanting on the dyno my time was limited so we had to short charge between runs. We probably got a good 10 minutes on the charger. We typically run it between 20-30 minutes at the track. Also after only 3 runs on the dyno the batteries were just barely warming up. We typically peak out on times when the batteries hit 120*F and that takes usually 4-5 runs. But 300HP isn't too bad. And 1260 ft-lbs of torque gets us 60ft times of 11 second cars. I don't really know what the "peak" torque is because I couldn't do a standing start. I had to do a slow roll up to 20 mph before stabbing it. I predict now that from a standing start it might peak up near 1500 ft-lbs, but runs the risk of breaking the dyno.

Anyway, just another data point.

Keep voting for us each day. We're #10 in the top contenders list for the Featured Car of the Month for September .
http://www.dragtimes.com/Ford-Pinto-Timeslip-15453.html

Enjoy
Mike


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## TX_Dj (Jul 25, 2008)

Mike, the first two links are invalid. looks like you copy/pasted them from someplace that shortens links to fit the page width. Nice dyno vid though.


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## electrabishi (Mar 11, 2008)

...had to fix these links​ ​ Got Dyno results posted:
http://www.dragtimes.com/1978-Ford-Pinto-Dyno-Results-Graphs-15453.html

the raw plot from the Dyno is here:
http://www.halestechnical.com/Mike Volmans Dyno Chart.JPG​


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## TX_Dj (Jul 25, 2008)

wowwwwwwww *drool*


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## major (Apr 4, 2008)

electrabishi said:


> the raw plot from the Dyno is here:​
> 
> http://www.halestechnical.com/Mike Volmans Dyno Chart.JPG​


Hi electrabishi,

Totally awesome. I love it when you post your data. Do you have the battery volts and amps to go along with this?

On the video, I thought you did a shift. Then realized it was the S/P switch. Plot shows clearly why that is important. It stretches out that power band quite a bit. Seemed like it only took a fraction of a second.

Great job with the Crazyhorse Pinto.

Regards,

major


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## electrabishi (Mar 11, 2008)

Yep the S/P shift completes in about 300ms. Its a really firm shift too.
I do have the electrical data from the Zilla for that dyno run but I'll have to send it from the house tonight.

Mike


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## major (Apr 4, 2008)

electrabishi said:


> I do have the electrical data from the Zilla for that dyno run but I'll have to send it from the house tonight.
> 
> Mike


Hey Mike,

I saw the data on Neon's web site. Cool. But the scale for the HP is incorrect.

major


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## electrabishi (Mar 11, 2008)

major said:


> Hey Mike,
> 
> I saw the data on Neon's web site. Cool. But the scale for the HP is incorrect.
> 
> major


The Values for motor HP are exaggerated x10 so that it doesn't plot down under the 500 line on the "y" scale and make it hard to pick off values. Just drop 1 zero from all the values that indicate x10 in the legend.

Mike


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## major (Apr 4, 2008)

electrabishi said:


> The Values for motor HP are exaggerated x10 so that it doesn't plot down under the 500 line on the "y" scale and make it hard to pick off values. Just drop 1 zero from all the values that indicate x10 in the legend.
> 
> Mike


Mike,

So that would be electrical HP into the motor?

major


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## electrabishi (Mar 11, 2008)

major said:


> Mike,
> 
> So that would be electrical HP into the motor?
> 
> major


Yes thats correct. The Zilla DAQ4 data is electrical parameters only. I correlated the Speed and RPM data onto the dyno WHP curves so I could calculate the torque. Putting it all on one graph would have made it too busy.

Mike


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## electrabishi (Mar 11, 2008)

electrabishi said:


> Yep the S/P shift completes in about 300ms. Its a really firm shift too.
> I do have the electrical data from the Zilla for that dyno run but I'll have to send it from the house tonight.
> 
> Mike


Here's links to the electrical data from the dyno run:
http://home.gci.net/~saintbernard/Crazyhorse_Pinto_DAQ4_06AUG08.pdf
http://home.gci.net/~saintbernard/Crazyhorse_Pinto_HP_Torque_06AUG08.pdf
http://home.gci.net/~saintbernard/Crazyhorse_Pinto_Dyno_Output_06AUG08.pdf


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## electrabishi (Mar 11, 2008)

I got some u-toob video posted from our runs (amongst the FAST cars) at the track 17Aug08:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mutCzLHwXEc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XGcyGL_BEQI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NzejR7J2IaE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L8C3eEOhdZM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3oXJWkpbIDI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cXgi4D-yF3g
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gqQAfGEzNUU
I’m the even numbered runs, Hank is the odd numbered runs.
Don’t go by the number on the window, we kept forgetting to change our number between races. They kept announcing Hank as me and vice versa ;-)
Mike
p.s. vote for us on Dragtimes each day until we make to the top 
http://www.dragtimes.com/Ford-Pinto-Timeslip-15453.html


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## electrabishi (Mar 11, 2008)

Hey all,
Its coming down to the end of our season. We haven’t had time to revamp our battery straps like we wanted to but I deployed a secret weapon on them and will report if we see any improvement. You may have caught that we knocked a tenth off our time the last time at the track. We’re now down to 12.478 @ 104.1 mph. Each time is getting a little better and we haven’t even been doing any mods. So being as this will be our last drag race for the season Hank is going to pony up (so to speak) for the King of the Street Series at the track on Saturday. Yes Jim, he has the spurs ready and will be deploying them on the ponies this time. I kinda think they’ve been loping so far ;-P So what we’ll be racing are pure street cars with times of 14.99 or better to run. We’ll no doubt be getting a few delayed starts. Since we can’t switch drivers during the competition Hank will drive and I’ll pit and take video. I’ve been itching to get some good video of us tromping some street cars. It seems most of the days we could make it to the track were Top Fuel and Top Dragster days L But no worries. All street cars on Saturday J And video will follow. Maybe even a better ET. I’ll be driving her around tomorrow for show and tell and may even run into some prominent folks ;-) The governor’s husband is interested and may make it to the track to watch as well. So stay tuned we’ll see how it goes.

Mike

Oh yeah, keep up the votes for us on http://www.dragtimes.com/Ford-Pinto-Timeslip-15453.html
We're currently #5 and knocking on the #4 door for Featured Car of the Month
http://www.dragtimes.com/


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## electrabishi (Mar 11, 2008)

Well after a gorgeous day at the track Saturday we came out with mixed results. Hank "Ponied" up for the King of the Street Brackets Saturday. After spending all day getting the batteries warmed up. Waiting through 4 other divisions of racing, a motorcycle accident, and two blown engines on the track we finally got our one shot to stay for the second race in a 7 car field. We're still all set to go and waiting to do the qualifying round (had to prove 14.99 or better). I was thinking we could do that on dead batteries ;-) And then they tell us the King of the Street field runs 3 parade laps up and down the track for folks to see that they are street cars (license plates, lights, windshield wipers, brakes, you know ... all the required stuff for the street) That was a surprise, and then they say they go right from the parade into the staging lanes for the qualifier. Uh oh, now I gotta prove we CAN do 14.99 on dead batteries. Well not really dead, 1.5 miles of slooow 35-40mph parading burned about as much juice as a full blown burnout. So we skipped the burnout for the qualifier and turned in a 13.01 qualifying run. We were told we'd have 15 mintues to be staged back up. Well we were back to the staging lanes in about 30 minutes and an hour later the rest of our field decided to join us. Z28, Mustang 5.0, '65 Chevelle and a couple other blown street rigs. 11 total in all including us. The top "fastest four" went on to the pro-bracket Heads up tree, the 7 that were left did dial in brackets. We're up first on the Mustang 5.0 who is dialling 12.55. Talk about a great match! Hank was running .03 reactions all day. But a 0.19 reaction and my ill fated advice to add in the reaction time for the dial in lost him the race by .0061 seconds. Hank ran a 12.614 @ 102.5 to the Mustang's 12.676 @102.2. Don't know what I was thinking having to account for the reaction time :-( We shoulda dialed 12.55 to match the Mustang  Although after we got eliminated I made two T/T runs and got it down to 12.4701 @104.47 which is 8 thou off my PB. Hank still has the fastest trap speed between us of 104.95. So thats pretty much how we finished up the season.

Now I alluded to a couple quick mods we working on. One was the battery strap situation. With the slotted straps we were losing significant contact area on the battery posts. I added some Stabilant22A contact enhancer to all the terminal connections in hopes to drop the contact resistances a little. Data from the Zilla indicated we were only hitting 75% duty cycle in the parallel mode shortly before the end of a run. As luck would have it John Wayland made a quick stop in Anchorage after a trip to the North Slope. We chatted over dinner and he gave us a tip to add some inductance to the motor loop in parallel mode. So $120 for a 30 ft length of 2/0 THHN wrapped around a 4" pipe and mounted under the hood, and there was our "Wayland Flux Inductor". We were told at the track that it was supposed to be a "Flux Capacitor" but I told them I didn't want to wind up in 1886. I'll get pics up soon enough. Suffice to say neither mods helped a whole lot. And it was an extra variable that made playing in the brackets hard (not that delaying a start and mis calculating the dial in didn't hurt us bad enough). Preliminary look at the data though shows we did hit 85% duty cycle on the parallel mode, so there was some improvement. So this will be something to look at over the winter. We were running pretty hot on the batteries too, and on the last T/T run I got a pretty good wiff of that sulpher smell like a bettery had vented. Good thing that we 1.) Have spare batteries and 2.) was the end of the season and have time to baby the pack back together.

All in all it was a good season. No records set (except I have 1/8 mile that compete favorably with Smoke Screen ;-) <Note to diyelectriccar.com readers: Smoke Screen is an electric S-10 that holds the 1/8 mile record in the PS/A3 NEDRA class that we currently run the 1/4 mile in> We have one more car show to attend in Seward this coming weekend and that will likely be the last outdoor appearance for a little while for the Crazyhorse.

I see we are just about to the top at Dragtimes.com so vote early and vote often. We should be there in October :-D
http://www.dragtime s.com/Ford- Pinto-Timeslip- 15453.html

Mike


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## electrabishi (Mar 11, 2008)

Thanks to all who have been pegging the votes each day on Dragtimes.com. Its been a long trip.
We're just 100 votes from being in the top spot and may need a few extra to hang onto it once achieved.
I know we can do it with your help. If we can't get 100 votes by Saturday the 6th of September I'm going to pack it up for the season.
(only because the races are over and Saturday is the last car show before the snow falls ;-)

http://www.dragtimes.com/Ford-Pinto-Timeslip-15453.html

Thanks again.

Mike


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## electrabishi (Mar 11, 2008)

Just wanted to give folks a season wrap up story that would make any EV owner proud. This is cross posted from my NEDRA list:
________________________________________
From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Mike Willmon
Sent: Monday, September 08, 2008 12:43 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: RE: [NEDRA] Crazyhorse Pinto Just 32 Votes from #1 on Dragtimes.com
Hey John and all,
Thanks for being the one to put us over the top. Just gotta hold the lead for a bit longer. And what a pleasure it was to visit with John on his way through Anchorage. He had those guys on the slope so hopped up on electrics some of them showed us at the track the next day with their family after being in purgatory on the North Slope of Alaska for several weeks ;-)

Just wanted to give a quick update from our weekend adventures and share a little story. Since racing is over we packed up the RV and trailered the Pinto to Seward Alaska where the 6th Annual Eddy’s Auto Show was happening. Eddy saw the Electrabishi on the news a couple years ago and has been trying to get me down to his show since then. 2 years ago I didn’t have a trailer. Last year the Pinto was not quite done. This year was a success. Trailer, tow rig, fast electric dragster and we made it to the show. There were probably near 100 cars there of all types. It was a lose show with “anything that would run allowed”. You can see slide shows of past events, and at some point the pics form this show, at : http://www.eddysauto.com/indexa.html

The Corvette club was there and has been a staple participant of Eddy’s show from the start. So I’m hanging out watching the 20 or so Corvettes line up in their reserved corner of the RV lot. Not long after a couple guys come trotting over from their crowd. They’re looking at the Pinto and the Channel 2 news clip happened to be playing on the Video loop on my laptop. Well at the exact moment the guy looked over at the laptop they’re playing my blurb about going to the “track in Palmer…racing the Mustangs and Corvettes” and immediately the guy looked over at me and yelled “You’re the one!!!” He kinda looked mad at first, then he said “you’re the guy who spanked us at the track this summer” I knew who it was then, although I had never met him. Early on, maybe the 2nd day at the track I ripped a white Corvette that was only turning low to mid 13’s. The track announcer went wild, not about how cool or fast the electric Pinto was, but that this Corvette with a 383 Stroker had just lost to a Pinto. Steve (the track announcer) kept on him the whole evening. Everytime he staged up at the line he would say “and here’s the white Corvette that lost to that Pinto….” I thought it he was laying it on pretty hard but it was fun to listen to. Anyway, the guy said he wasn’t all that surprised he was beat by an electric because he figured it would put out a lot of torque. He was more hurt that it was a Pinto, which was my reason #2 for picking the Pinto in the first place. So I asked if he or his buddies wanted to borrow my shoe polish and put their ¼ mile times up on their windshield. He said nope, can’t do it….. I already sold it! He couldn’t stand all the work he had put into the car and to be beat by an electric Pinto….so he sold it for a more stock machine. 

So that made my weekend. And to get home and see we were #1 at the polls on Drag Times; it just finishes up a good summer season nicely. Even though we didn’t beat any White Zombie records (which wasn’t all that realistic anyway), we do have 1/8 mile times that compete favorably to Dennis’ Smoke Screen. And we’d love to get either him or Michael Kadie, or even the White Zombie, out to a ¼ mile strip some day. 

Anyway, is late even for Alaskans in the summer time so I better let EVeryone go. Thanks again for sticking with the votes. Don’t cut lose yet. We have to maintain until the end of the month. I should get a big green pumpkin stem for the top of the Pinto if we are going to be the October (Halloween) Feature 

Mike
AMPED


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## electrabishi (Mar 11, 2008)

Well we've had the votes now for the whole month. Just had to wait for October 1st to roll around, and now we're "Featured Car of the Month" on the front page of http://www.dragtimes.com.

Thanks all who popped us some votes.

We also posted an 1/8th mile NEDRA record in the PS/A3 class of 7.933 @ 85.23 mph
http://www.nedra.com/record_holders.html

We were going for the 12.151 second record in the 1/4 mile as our goal for the year, but the seasons over here and we came up shy at 12.47 seconds at 104.47 mph.

More to come for next year. Thanks for watching ;-)

Mike


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## Rook (Jun 5, 2008)

CONGRATULATIONS!!!!!

It’s been fun to cast a vote or two and to watch your progress. Keep posting but most importantly keep upgrading the Pinto.


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## Gary Sconce (Oct 4, 2008)

Schweet pinto! I remember learning to drive in a pinto wagon on the mountain roads of Oregon... when I was in 7th grade... Totally illegal of course. The strange thing was my dad let me do it! 

I don't think that our pinto wagon could do what yours does though...


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