Archive for July, 2005

Silver Bullet Flies Again!

Wednesday, July 27th, 2005

Father Time and son Tom True have entrusted me with their world record setting triple motor Datsun Z Car, and have bravely let me have my way with it :-)

The car is now here in Portland, and together with forklift wrench buddies Tim Brehm and Jeffrey Bywater, we’ve been waking up the beast. Gone are the old tired batteries and in their place are 14 brand new Exide Blue Top marine Orbitals. With a 156V pack back in 2002, this car recorded a world record best of 14.779 @ 87.58 for the street legal SC/D class…we intend on destroying that! With three Prestolite motors and three 1200 amp Raptor controllers to give 3600 amps into the motor circuit, plus 2500 amps of power available at the battery side of things, I’m pushing the 156V nominal rated controllers at 168V with the 14, 12V batteries. Special care has to be taken and certain safety designs followed to keep the controllers from ever seeing the fully charged 200+V potential the 168V can obtain.

Last night we pretty much finished the 4/0 heavy gauge battery inter-connects, so the pack is ready to make power. Gone is the 50 lb. 12V battery under the hood, replaced with a 10 lb. Hawker, and, other weight savings methods have been employed. We’re having fun breathing new life into this fast EV.

Tonight the control wiring will get finished and a test drive and battery break-in will follow. Madman Rudman is supplying racing meats for the back end. With Jeffrey as the driver (he drove it last year at 120V here in Portland), I’m predicting a 14.3 @ 95 mph as a worse case run, and hoping that maybe even a high 13 @ 100 mph is in the cards! We ‘were’ going to race it at PIR this weekend, but the weekend drag racing has been canceled due to the Portland Le Mans races. We’re now looking into running at Woodburn this weekend instead, and if that doesn’t work out, we’ve be at PIR next weekend for sure.

At 14.7, this car was no slouch and could beat the majority of the higher performance gas cars out there on the streets. With less weight and far more power now, it should really be fun.

We’ll keep everyone posted.

See Ya…John ‘Plasma Boy’ Wayland

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Almost Submerged the Heavy Metal Garden Tractor!

Monday, July 4th, 2005

With all the recent interest in electric garden tractors, my tale for today is timely. First, it was Steve’s swimming hair ball, now it’s diving tractors?

OK, here’s the deal…..I’m helping my wife in our backyard doing un-Plasma Boy like ‘yard stuff’…after all, it’s a long three day 4th of July weekend, the weather’s a near perfect 71 degrees or so, and there’s no rain right now. We had a big, very special lemon yellow Rhododendron that’s been in a large 3 - 4 foot diameter pot for many years now, unlike all the other Rhodies we have planted all around. This one came from a nursery in this big pot, but we had finally decided to make a new place for it and had dug a deep hole to plant it into. This thing probably weighed 400 lbs. in its big pot, and we needed to move it from the crowded side yard where it had sat for several years next to the large stone wall and the corner of the house garage. Those who’ve been to our place can probably visualize things as this story progresses.

In between yard stuff, I’m also working on the race car, organizing my EV shop, and doing other more Plasma Boy-like stuff. Soooo…my wife is wondering just how we’re going to move this big heavy plant the 25 feet or so we need to get it over to where its new home is, when I pronounce that my recent rework of the Heavy Metal Garden Tractor (HMGT) is complete, and it’s up and running, ready to show her what it can do with its fresh pack of 6 Exide Orbitals.

As she and I are digging this big hole in the ground, the HMGT is poised near us in the small wooded back yard, her favorite Eagles CD in the slot, tunes playing in full fidelity, though at a more a subdued volume so as not to bother our neighbors. The time comes for the work to be done, and after securing a nylon tow rope around the base of the big pot with a second tow rope connecting it to the tow hook on the rear of the HMGT, it was time to let a little electric torque help us out. With Cheryl at the controls and in the tractor’s seat, I was keeping the plant upright. Without much trauma the little garden tractor effortlessly tugged and pulled the big potted plant as it slid along the ground while I guided it and kept it from being toppled over.

After successfully moving the plant to near the hole, we then needed to get the plant out of the pot, and, do it while not destroying the pot, as my wife wanted to keep it for another replanting project. It’s not that easy, when it’s so big and heavy, and try as we did, we could not separate the plant from its pot….enter the HMGT again. We carefully tied two nylon tow ropes around the tree-like trunk of the Rhodie and hitched the other ends to the tractor. I gave the HMGT about 1/2 throttle as it started to tug, then begun spinning both rear tires by itself, as I was off the tractor and helping Cheryl pull the pot away from the compacted root ball. It worked, as suddenly the whole thing came loose from the pot……unfortunately, so did the nylon tow ropes off the tractor’s tow hook
:-(

Off went the tractor, dead straight towards our back yard fish pond that’s about 3 feet deep! I hadn’t noticed, but the speed selector of the variable pulley-tranny affair, was in 7th, or top speed. I mean, it was heading dead-on at the pond’s end flat rock, which overhangs a 3 foot deep hole large enough to easily swallow the entire tractor! As it sped away towards the pond it ran over and flattened my wife’s designer largish sized watering can (not good) then smacked into a potted small tree tipping it over and moving it out of the way, then into two more potted plants. It was about a foot shy of flying over the rock as I caught up with the runaway tractor and did something I normally try not to do…flip the reversing toggle switch under load! Instantly, the motor reversed, the controller lived through the ordeal, and with rear tires churning up soil and rocks, the tractor barely missed going into the pond and was now really pissed off and coming backwards at me! I was able to leap aside and pull the throttle down where the possessed HMGT simply went silent and sat there…..whew!

I tell you, it was really weird! An inspection of the front of the tractor showed no signs of damage….nothing. The watering can was pretty lunched and one of the pots was cracked, but the front of the tractor looked fine. Once I had the tractor back in the EV shop, I found the front tie rod was bent, but that was an easy fix.

See Ya….John Wayland

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Gas Tax Lady Picks on the Wrong Guy…more fun at ‘05 Gasless on Greenwood!

Friday, July 1st, 2005

So here we were, my wife Cheryl, her sister Sharon and husband Robert, and myself, sitting outside at a sidewalk table that was part of a Greek deli, getting ready to enjoy our Mediterranean dishes that were to be our lunch break from the hustle-bustle of this fantastic car show we were part of, when a nice lady with a clipboard approached us. She was very polite, but also very determined to talk with us about Washington state’s goofy proposed ’special’ gas tax, just another one of this state’s latest schemes to dig into the residents pockets. You can imagine at a car show of this size, how this tax proposal was going over. Anyway…..she apologizes for interrupting our lunch, and went on to tell us how the gas tax would affect us, how it wasn’t a good solution to a problem, how unfair it was, etc., etc. Of course, I couldn’t resist the temptation…..

EV guy: “Gas tax…you mean, as in taxing the gas that all these cars use?”

Anti-tax lady: “Yes, that’s exactly right, they want to restrict our driving and make it cost more for us to drive our cars.”

EV guy: “Nah, no thanks, I don’t care. In fact, they could triple the tax, and I wouldn’t care. In fact, I hope they really sock it to everyone.”

—————

At this point, Robert is trying his best not top break out in laughter, as he knows what I’m up to, knows what a hornet’s nest this poor lady has wandered into, and knows my routine…..

Anti-tax lady: “Maybe you don’t understand how this will impact your driving. You’ll have to pay a lot more to enjoy your car. Are you a spectator, or do you perhaps have a car in this show? Either way, you surely like cars if you’re here, right?”

EV guy: “Oh, yes, I do have a car in this show, it’s right up there (pointing up the street).

Anti-tax lady: “Well then, what are you going to do, the next time you gas it up, when it costs a lot more to do so?”

EV guy: “Uh, gee, I don’t know…you see, I haven’t had to put gas in it since 1980…uh, let’s see, uh, yeah, that’s right, it hasn’t used ‘any ‘ gas for 2.5 decades now.”

Anti-tax lady (still unfettered by anything I’ve said so far): “Oh so it’s just a trailer queen, only for show and doesn’t really run.”

EV guy: “No, it runs great and I drove it to the show this morning, but it still didn’t use any gas.”

—————

Robert’s about to lose it now, Cheryl is getting that disgusted wife-of-the-EV nut look, and even I, am having a hard time keeping a straight face……

Anti-tax lady, still not giving in yet: “Oh, so it’s a diesel….you’re not off the hook, the tax applies to noncommercial diesel, too.”

EV guy: “Nope, it aint no stink’n diesel. Nope, non of those fumes from gas, or diesel.”

Anti-tax lady (finally getting worn down): : “I don’t get it, why don’t you care about this?”

EV guy: “Well you see….my car’s electric and it runs on clean, American made electrons, and in my case, generated by the mighty Columbia River via hydro power. I’m free of the bondage to the gas pump, free of middle east oil, and, my car doesn’t belch out fumes like all these other machines here. So you see, I really could care less about a gas tax. Ya know, you really ought to put that stupid clipboard away and come over to see the Seattle electric car club’s line of nifty electric cars over there.”

Robert (who no longer can stay silent): “He’s not kidding, he’s got a really cool electric car, and there’s a bunch more up there, even an electric motorcycle. Man, you picked on the wrong guy this morning!”

The anti-gas tax lady was way cool and knew I was just messing with her. I also confessed that I had to use gas to tow my car to the show, and, that I was an Oregon resident not subject to Washington state’s proposed tax. But, we did have a nice chat all about EVs and how they could improve things. I also told her about my Honda Insight that gets up to 92 mpg. She told me I really got her! Oh yeah, she also ended up coming over to see the EV display, and, spent a good amount of time talking with everyone seemingly, really taking it all in.

What a great opportunity to convert a gasoholic!

See Ya….John Wayland

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