Wayland’s Words

This month’s Car and Driver magazine features an excellent article written by Ted West entitled “Batteries Included; In Oregon the Merry Lunatic Fringe Builds a Green Screamer.” The article highlights John, Tim, the White Zombie and many others from the electric racing community.

Link to online article

Mike Willmon wrote:

So another question for the list. Since welded gears are not EVen allowed under NHRA rules and spools are only allowed with aftermarket housings, whats the strongest type of locking differential to get for drag racing? Detroit, Auburn, ARB (are ARB Air lockers EVen strong enough for racing?)?

I think they’re all pretty strong. I love the Detroit Locker in White Zombie. Not a lick of problems to report, and it simply goes about its business. In a quiet EV, it’s pretty cool because you can clearly hear the locker ratcheting and clicking as the car turns, then when you line up straight on the strip launch pad, it goes ‘Ka-clunk!’ as if to say, “Yeah, I’m ready to help you paint twin blacks stripes.” The Detroit has taken all the power the Siamese 8 has twisted into it and has easily handled the torque. I would highly recommend one. (more…)

MIKE WILLMON wrote:

My next concern is the strength of the assembly housing itself.

I see John’s mentioned going to a built aluminum carrier (and maybe a whole aluminum housing)

Mike, the new ‘Strange’ aluminum third member has arrived, though I haven’t picked it up yet. I am not going to an aluminum housing for the rest of the axle setup though. I am very pleased with the Dutchman Motorsports steel ‘Street Strip’ housing and have had no problems with it at all. In addition to this new aluminum third member casting, a new ‘Wilwood’ drag raging disc brake conversion setup has also arrived. These are specifically designed for drag racing, are extremely light weight, and for a little Datsun 1200 are huge at 11.3 inches. Together, these two changes should chop another 50-70 lbs. weight off the car, and the having four wheel discs will certainly make the car haul itself down from 110 mph quicker.

After Sunday’s foray into flash-over motor volt limits, I’ve decided to do another gear ratio change, too. More on this later.

John,
Aside from the cracks around your pinion shaft carrier, how did the chopped assembly housing from the ‘57 Ford hold up to the abuse?

Very well. I had no problems at all with the stock housing. The only complaint, was that chopped as it came to me, it placed the third member off to the passenger side too far. By the time the Dutchman would have been finished modding the housing and its two axles, it was not a lot more money to simply start over with the ‘Street Strip’ housing fitted with the big bearings and the beefy 31 spline Dutchman axles over the stock 28 spline ones.
See Ya……John Wayland

John, Tim and White Zombie went for a day of racing at Portland International on Sunday. No post from John yet, but here are a series of posts made by Roderick Wilde to the EVDL.

3/18/2007 1:19PM

John has been calling me from the track so for those very few EV race fans out there here is an update. The first run on the new batteries with the current turned down to a measly small street amps of 1000 it turned a 12.64 at 98.69 mph. The 60 ft time was 1.67 and it was at 84.5 mph at the eighth mile at 7.85 seconds. The second run netted a 12.38 second ET at 104.21 mph. Of particular note is the fact that in all of last years racing 104 mph was the top speed they ever got out of “White Zombie”. They have a great announcer at Portland International Raceway that is really playing up the fact that this is an electric car and also the specs on the car. The first two runs annihilated the cars in the other lane. The second run was against a built V8 Chevy Nova. The poor guy didn’t have a prayer being matched up against the electric. On the second run he was at 87.73 mph in 7.74 seconds. With these leaps in performance they just may get into the elevens without turning up the amps. I personally believe this type of publicity does a lot for the cause of EVs. People at the track go home and tell their buddies, “hey, you wouldn’t believe what I saw at the track last night!” The word is definitely starting to get out there and with the Car and Driver article EVs may become part of the general population’s consciousness.

Roderick Wilde
“Suck Amps EV Racing”
www.suckamps.com

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