I'm squirreling away the carbon. If you decide to try it, let me know. It's near exactly the same as fiberglass.
Printable View
I'm squirreling away the carbon. If you decide to try it, let me know. It's near exactly the same as fiberglass.
OK, I have to brag a little more:D... April 27th was the big annual race at Pensacola Five Flags Speedway. The hastily repaired USF #48 car won again!:3dSMILE: Cars and teams come to this race from all over the southeast and the competition is intense. Here's where I get to brag - (1) Florida cars took the top 4 spots :3dSMILE:and (2) I built 3 of those cars!:HMMM::rolleyes::3dSMILE:
We ran the last race of the 2018-2019 season at the Florida Solar Energy Center this past Saturday, May 4. Only three cars signed in to compete in the Open Class.:rolleyes: Then there is good news and bad news. The bad news is the rough track broke a bolt in my front suspension, causing the left front suspension to collapse, and I only completed 13 laps in the first race.:( The good news is I won anyway!:D The second place car broke a wheel after only 11 laps and the third car failed to start because of an electrical glitch.:LOL::LOL:
The #48 USF car won the Advanced Battery Class again and the #35 Simmons Career Center car took the High School Class.
Season results were also announced and awarded Saturday. The #48 USF car (Tampa, FL) is season champion in Advanced Battery Class. Tiger Racing car #4 (Hialeah, FL) is season champ in Open Class. Mulberry High School car #38 (Mulberry, FL) is champion in High School Class.:cool: All three of these cars turned well over a thousand laps in competition this season, proving their durability and consistency and showing their team's determination.
Congratulations!
Ditto.. Congrats Jim
...and I built the other one! (Got 2nd place)
Jim, I have been racing Electrathon for four years now and while I have only raced against you personally once, I have been chasing (and sometimes been chased by) your cars the whole time. I'm pretty sure that every race I have been in has had a Robinson car in the top five finishers. I have definitely learned a lot from your build chronicles and have included several of your tips and techniques into my cars.
Thanks for the education!
Welcome to Club Hotrod, Steve. Lots of great "car people" and "gear heads" here. Congratulations on your performance at Pensacola. Everybody likes pictures; maybe you can post some pics of your car here when you get time?:)
I'm getting old and don't know how much longer I'll be racing, but maybe we'll get to race each other again before I quit. Thanks for the compliments and, if I can pass on any useful info to you, just ask.;)
It looks like you may be competing against some of my cars for some time to come. On the weekend of June 29-30 I have six people coming to learn what I do, how I do it, and why I do it that way! I don't really have any secrets, but some folks seem puzzled by my methods. Or maybe they just lack confidence to try on their own.:HMMM: Regardless, I'm going to teach six people the basics of how to build an Electrathon car. I know it's short notice, but we'd love to have you here if you could come. If so, contact Charlie Harrison about accommodations, etc.
If you've been following this thread (or looked back at some of the recent posts), you are aware that I have experimented with 3-wheel independent suspension on my last few cars. I can now report my findings (opinion)…
I originally built the blue flame car because the previous season (at the Cocoa race you attended) I got so beat up on the course at the Solar Energy Center in the first race that I quit the second race at 16 minutes while leading my class!:eek: The blue flame car worked great at keeping me from getting beat up on that same rough track the following year and I was leading with 3 minutes to go when I popped a tire...:mad: Then, last September, one of the schools needed a car quickly so they could make the first race of the season and it was all I had available, so I sold it. I built another one of my "Silver Bullet" design cars but with that same suspension. It performed perfectly at its first three races this past season and won my class all three times, but broke at the last race (the rough Cocoa track again).:rolleyes: I have repaired and improved the part that broke, but I have determined that in future builds suspension will be limited to the rear wheel only. Why? Because it's the rear wheel that beats up the driver! You can dodge the big bumps with the front wheels, but the rear wheel is right behind and under your head and upper body and it has the greatest effect on your comfort.:(
Electrathon has been and continues to be a learning experience, but most of all it's fun!:3dSMILE: Keep in touch.
I'm amassing a nice stock pile of carbon fiber cloth. I'm sure at least one roll is destined for your electrathon car.
OK, I'm back to report that the summer training session went very well.:3dSMILE: The students and I built a second frame jig - a duplicate of the one I already have - and then built two Silver Bullet frames. One frame was complete with motor mount and all steering components - it belongs to Electrathon of Tampa Bay (ETO). The second frame was paid for by Rodney Schreck from Miami (my teaching assistant) and will become his new Advanced Battery class car. We accomplished everything in the course of two 10-hour days. We may do an extended seminar in the future where I can teach some of my body fabrication methods. I don't have any secrets; some of my students admitted they just hadn't had the confidence to try building a car on their own before.:HMMM:
We had our first race of the new season on Saturday (9-21-19) at Hillsborough Community College. I won the Open Standard Battery class by 7 laps over my good friend Rodney Schreck (109 to 102).:3dSMILE: After the second race Rod discovered a hot connection on one of his battery cables, so it was likely drawing too much voltage and causing a power loss.:( We usually finish on the same lap within a few yards of each other on this track.
At our next race I will be trying my luck in the Advanced Battery class.:rolleyes: Rodney and I are both going to give some new Lithium battery packs a try. The difference is the Lithium battery pack is 62 pounds lighter than the twin Optimas that I'm accustomed to and double the voltage!:eek: It may take a few races for me to get the hang of this new combination - different gear ratios, lighter weight, faster acceleration. I'll report here, of course, success or failure.:whacked:
Very nice Jim! Those lithium batteries sure last a long time and up here in the winter the cold doesn't effect them much either.
.
Well, it could have been worse... Yesterday (10/12/19) I ran with the Lithium batteries for the first time. First, I was amazed at the difference in acceleration! Being 62 pounds lighter (11 versus 73 pounds of battery weight), having twice the voltage (48 instead of 24), and a big change in gear ratio made the acceleration absolutely impressive!:eek: I took it easy at first and waited until I had a clear track ahead. Then I twisted the throttle up and, after a momentary jolt of acceleration, everything went dead! The car shut off, the gauge panel went blank... nothing...:HMMM: The USF college guys came to the rescue and pushed me to the pits. When I told them everything went dead after I accelerated, they told me to shut off the master power switch and turn it back on. I did, and everything came back! They explained that the BMS (Battery Management System) built into the battery pack shut the power off to keep it from over-discharging and doing permanent damage to itself!:cool:
OK, so I had to make sure when I'm accelerating that I don't exceed 30 amps for more than 1.5 seconds! Back on the track and gently accelerating, I set my speed at a comfortable 28 mph. One of the other cars in Advanced Battery class (there were 4 of us) had a mechanical issue and dropped out early, so I finished 3rd in the first race. I had run a total of 87 laps to the winner's 117.:rolleyes:
During the break between races, the USF guys offered to reprogram my motor controller so it would be less likely to shut off unexpectedly again. After they finished we ran the car for a few seconds on the jack. Everything seemed OK. At the start of the second race my car was dead!:mad: Wouldn't do anything! I had power; the gauge panel was working, but the car wouldn't go. The USF guys pushed me back to the pits as the race was starting. We ran the car on the stand again, so what was wrong? They had incorrectly set the "over voltage protection" in the controller program. I climbed back in the car and they gave me a push-start - it worked! Unfortunately, the reprogramming had also limited my top speed to 23 mph. Crap!!:( Oh well, at least I finished. The same car that had mechanical issues in the first race had a worse problem in this race; with about 9 minutes left he blew a tire, ran off in the grass, and rolled over. I ended up 3rd again, so I got 3rd place in the Advanced Battery class for the day.:) OK, so I profited from someone else's misfortune, but at least I came home with a trophy.
I will get the bugs worked out of the controller and learn the idiosyncrasies of Lithium battery packs in a couple more races. When I do I think this is going to be fun! At the very least, it's going to be a learning experience.:whacked:
Very Interesting.. The battery has built in protection. I guess like any new technology there are things to learn and "tinker with"..
I think it's called the new car blues!?!?! LOL.
Thanks for sharing your new battery experiences! I'm not knowledgeable enough about electronics to know, but it makes me wonder if you couldn't have an amp draw input, and then do a feed forward power demand with an amp limit feedback to trim just a shade below 30 amps. Then a "turbo" button that pushes an unlimited demand, trimmed to 1.4 second pulses? Just messing, but I'll be interested to hear how you solve your BMS programming to crank your speed while protecting the batteries. Cool stuff!!
Pulse width modulation. You can feed the motor full power but the bats will see an average which will be under 30 A.
OK, you guys are speaking a foreign language to me. I can design and fabricate almost anything mechanical, but electronics... UGH!!:whacked: The good news is I have an Electronics Technician in the family. I will pass your suggestions on to him and see if we can implement them. If we can't program this controller to do what we need I'll just have to learn to use a "soft touch" on the throttle and keep an eagle eye on the ammeter when I'm accelerating.:rolleyes:
I ran my second race with the Lithium batteries on December 14. It was our annual "Speed Dash" event where we suspend the one-hour race length and go for only 20 minutes.:HMMM: The difference is we don't have to conserve battery power; we can run "balls out" for the duration. The course for this race was the quarter-mile oval (around the football field) at Brandon High School.
I'm still learning how to program the controller:whacked:, but it went fairly well this time. I was no competition for Cliff Rassweiler who's been running in Advanced Battery class for a couple of years, but I did manage a second place finish in both races which gave me a second place trophy for the day. I turned 39 laps in the first race and 42 in the second race for a total of 81. The third place car turned 79 laps. I'm learning...:3dSMILE:
Congrats Jim! Always fun to see where you are headed in the Electric car racing world!
I skipped the January 18 race at Wharton High School. I had another obligation that day and I don't like the course there anyway, so missing it didn't really break my heart.:rolleyes:
February 22nd we ran at University of South Florida (Tampa). This race is run every year in conjunction with USF's Engineering Expo and it's one of the oldest Electrathon races in Florida. This year I was looking forward to running the race with my new Lithium batteries. I was thinking that the 63 pound weight reduction (battery weight) would make the car handle better and be much easier on the tires. I was right; the car seemed to be much more nimble and the tire wear in the first race was greatly reduced.:) However.., the Battery Management System (BMS) built into the Lithium battery would shut the power off every time I would try to accelerate a little too rapidly!:mad: Five different times, when I would need a burst of throttle to clear traffic, the stupid thing shut off! By the time I could recycle the system (shut off and back on) I was left behind. I still managed a second place finish behind the Electrocutioners.:o
For the second race, Jerry Bristow, my old friend from Indiana, piloted the car. Between races we changed the car over to run my reliable old Optima Yellow Top batteries. Why? Because fighting with the BMS in the Lithium battery pack took all the fun out of the first race.:( There is no money to made in this type of racing; we do it purely for the fun and bragging rights, so I made the decision to change battery types and put the fun back in. Jerry drove to a second place finish and turned the same number of laps (70) that I did in the first race. We got a second place in Advanced Battery division for the day.:3dSMILE: The pic below is Jerry negotiating one of the hairpin turns ahead of Mulberry High School, Rodney Schreck, and Plant City High School.
Next race is at Mulberry High School on the oval March 7th. Hopefully I can figure out how to get along with the BMS in the Lithium batteries before then. If not, I will run my good old Optima Yellow Tops and race in the Standard Battery class. I'll post the outcomes here.
Thanks for the updates Jim, fascinating racing with the E cars!
Ditto what Dave said - this is a fascinating thread and electric cars are here to stay so why not have fun with them. Your knowledge amazes me Mr. Robinson!
P.S. - "The 2021 Ford Mach-E electric crossover SUV will have up to 300 miles of driving range, sprint from 0 to 60 mph in mid 3-second range, and have all-wheel drive—although not all in the same car." Can you say fast.... very fast.
My wife and I had a 2013 Chevy Volt for a couple of years. It's not considered a "performance car" by any means, but the acceleration was amazing. We loved the way it drove and rode, but it was tough on my wife's back getting in and out of such a low slung ride, so we got an SUV. My son had a Volt also, and he blew the doors off a new Camaro one day. It was a V-8 Camaro, not a V-6. They got into a pissing match from stoplight to stoplight and the Volt was out-pulling the Camaro at every launch. When they finally got to a place where the next stoplight was about a half mile down the road, the Camaro finally outran the Volt.
Playing with these Electrathon cars has been a real education for me. I raced stock cars for years; big horsepower and torque were always generated at high RPM. In electric motors, maximum torque is available as soon as the armature moves - it took me a long time to get used to that. Also, screaming high RPMs aren't always the most powerful or most efficient range of an electric motor. It's all weird science to me, but fun to play with. It's also the cheapest racing I've ever done. If you build your own car you can be racing for $1200 - $1500. In the course of a season I will use two sets of tires (6 tires at $29 ea) and maybe use $20 worth of electricity to recharge my batteries 10 or 12 times. All that totaled together wouldn't freshen the engine in my old sportsman Camaro...
OK, as I said previously, if I didn't get the Lithium battery to perform to suit me I would switch back to Open Standard Battery class and run my trusty old Optima Yellow Tops... and that's exactly what happened.
I spent the week leading up to the March 7th race experimenting with some big capacitors in parallel with the Lithium battery. The idea was to fool the Battery Management System (BMS) into not reading the amperage spike when accelerating. It didn't work.
So, the day before the race I changed the gear ratio and disconnected the capacitors. On Saturday, March 7 we ran the Optima batteries in the Open Standard Battery class. All was well at first; I was running steadily at 28 mph and leaving the other cars in Open class behind. It seems I guessed wrong on the gear ratio, though, because with about 10 minutes remaining the car started slowing as the batteries were expended. It was a cold day and I had not considered the effect on the batteries. With 2 minutes remaining I was basically crawling - my speed had dropped to 8 mph. The only good news was both of my Open class competitors had problems of their own and dropped out shortly before the end and I won the first race.
Between races we changed the gear ratio (from 3.33:1 to 3.64:1) to hopefully allow the car to perform better in the second race. It was a good guess because Jerry Bristow drove the car to another first place and it was still running a brisk pace at the finish. At the end of the day we brought home the first place trophy.:D
Our next race and season finale was supposed to be April 25th, but it has since been cancelled due to the damned Corona Virus. Anyway, I ran 5 races this season; I got one 3rd place and two 2nd places in Advanced Battery class and two 1st places in Open Standard Battery class.
In the pic below, Jerry Bristow is driving my purple car, leading the Open class. The white/orange car is the 2nd place open class car of Rodney Schreck. The blue car is the winning (Mulberry High) High School class car, and the black car (barely visible) is the winning Advanced Battery class car from USF. I took this picture because I built all four cars!:3dSMILE:
A lot of topics to be proud of in that post Jim. Congrats on the win and the winning season!
Didn't Jerry use to post on this "board".. I remember his name, but I'm unsure if he had a rod... But tell'im we said HELLO !
No, Jerry has never posted on this site. He is an old rodder who had several nice cars over the years, but sold his last true hot rod several years ago. The only "collectible" he owns now is a 1986 IROC-Z Camaro that is in beautiful mint condition.:rolleyes: Anyway, I have mentioned him in several previous posts when he has driven my Electrathon cars; maybe that's why the name seems familiar to you...:confused:
Congrats on another great season!
We're baaaaack!:D The 2019-20 Electrathon season ended after the March 7th race at Mulberry High School because of the pandemic.:( Many of us wondered if there would be a season for 2020-21 because of delayed school openings and other restrictions. Fortunately, our Florida Electrathon CEO, Charlie Harrison, worked some magic and we have opened our new season on time with a race at Hillsborough Community College (HCC) on Saturday, September 19th.:D We were instructed to wear our masks except when we were driving our race cars (they don't fit well under a full face helmet) and only minimum necessary team members were allowed to attend (no unnecessary personnel and no spectators).:HMMM:
Having still not worked out my issues with the Lithium batteries, I elected to run my trusty lead-acid Optima Yellowtops in the Open Standard class. I turned 103 laps in each race and won both of them.:3dSMILE: Rodney Schreck from Hialeah, FL turned 97 laps in the first race and discovered one of his batteries had a dead cell afterwards. In the second race he turned 101 laps. His total for the day was good enough for second place. Todd Thuma, the teacher/sponsor from Mulberry High School brought their car, but no students. They are restricted from traveling outside their county during the Covid pandemic, so Todd drove the Mulberry car himself in Open Standard class and took third place. He turned 102 laps in the first race but had mechanical difficulties in the second race which sidelined him for 6 or 8 laps. If not for that, he may have been a serious challenger to my apparent domination.:rolleyes: The fourth car in our Open Standard class was the entrant from HCC. I didn't get the driver's name, but they had mechanical difficulties all day and were many laps down at the end.
So, my season has started off with a win and no issues with my car.:3dSMILE: I hope that's a good omen. Stay tuned and I'll report here. If I get any pictures from someone I'll post them here, too. I didn't shoot any myself; I was busy driving.:)
Winner, Winner, Chicken Dinner! Glad that your CEO worked his magic in a way that kept everyone safe! No spectators is tough, especially for the students, but IMO it's the prudent answer for now. Congratulations!
No pictures huh?? :( Well. I guess you did have a great excuse! :LOL::LOL::eek::LOL: Congrats on the win and glad to hear someone is getting to have some fun!
So ya did great !!! High five,love it when a plan comes to gether. Go Jim !!!!
I guess Rodney never did race the car he got from Rex,Lance an I , a few years back,
" Rolling Thunder",so he used it for parts,or sold it,or maybe let it rot, if left out side much? I had sold him the outer aero body drawings an plans n parts also,that we never did complet, put on. Was a lot EZer to work on with out a aero body in the way,an at the time ,seem'd none of the tracks we ran on were high enough speed to get a big gain from that.
Hi Bat!
Yes, Rodney has run the "leaner car" several times. He brought it up here after he got it and we updated the roll cage to get it "legal" again (rules had changed a bit since you built it). He removed the derailleur to simplify the drive train and modified the motor mount to accept an Etek motor. He took it to Pensacola and up to the big race in Alabama a couple times and had a couple of decent results. He is still tinkering and experimenting with it, but it's one of six Electrathon cars he has, so he spreads his time around on all of them.
Thanks,was woundering what happened. Interesting about removing gearing advantages,an calling it"Simplify" LOL.
Newer Etek,vs that old Scott was likely good too do,that Scott was one you had used some years before,you were very kind too pitch it in to our pile of parts to build a racer with back then<Always a thank you there.
I looked back too last years pic's to see new roll bar added hoop rule idea you said. Looks pretty good idea.
Hot rod wise,my old 1928A is showing age on Ford V8 Y-block 292. I should of bored it,an new pistons,last time, 10+years ago. Just didn't have the $,an now I've had to replace rings in two cyl.. What I need is to find a fair running Y-292,even if only to use,as I rebuild the used up one in my hot rod. Still same old low $ prob. That last time out was March 8/2020,been just leaking oil on garage floor ever since.
I've been lax in my reporting; sorry for the delay...:o We had our second race of the season on October 3rd. We were back at Hillsborough Community College again and running the same course as the previous race (Sept 19 - see above). This time the finishing results were reversed between me and Rodney Schreck - he won and I finished second. At the September race Rodney had a battery beginning to fail (dead cell) and dropping voltage. This time, with a new pair of batteries, he was able to fend off my attacks and he beat me by 3 laps on the day.:rolleyes:
My and Rodney's cars are very similar (I built both) and we have identical motors and batteries. Whichever one of us beats the other is mostly dependent on traffic and who drives with the most finesse.**) Since the Covid pandemic is keeping the car count down, traffic was not an issue at either of the races so far. This time Rodney "out-finessed" me. (He's also 40 pounds lighter than me, so that could be a factor...) Anyway, I have attached a pic from the second race of the day. Rodney had just passed me to put me a lap down.:D
Congrats on another great run Jim, and thanks for the update!
November 7th we ran our third race of the season at Plant City High School in Plant City, Florida (near Tampa). It's been several years since we ran there (2011), so it was like running at a new venue. The parking lot is long and narrow, so the course is similar to a paper clip - long straights with a tight turn at either end. The race organizers put a double chicane on the back stretch just to make it more challenging. The asphalt is old and hasn't been sealed since it was laid, so it's abrasive and very hard on tires.:HMMM:
In the first race I started outside second row (4th). As usual, I took a pretty conservative pace for the first few laps then picked up to a comfortable speed. I usually do that to conserve my batteries for late in a race when I run my fastest laps. Newcomers tend to run fast at first and burn down their batteries, so late in the race I lap them repeatedly.;) Todd Thuma #38 took the early lead and lapped me within the first 7 minutes. About 10 minutes later he passed me again. I figured he was using his power early and I would get him at the end. Meantime, he and I had both lapped Rodney Schreck at least three times. I didn't see Todd for several laps and then I noticed he was behind me again. I thought he was trying to lap me a third time, but he just stayed there letting me set the pace. (See pic) We cruised that way for quite a while. Then, with 18 minutes left on the clock, it's "time to rock & roll" and I picked up the pace.:3dSMILE: Soon, Todd was no longer in my mirrors - I was pulling away. A few minutes into my run for the finish, I came off turn four and saw Todd ahead of me, limping to the pits with a flat rear tire. Fourteen minutes remaining... I noticed my left front tire was showing a gray streak in the center of the tread - that means it's worn through the rubber tread and is running on the cord.:eek: I slowed my pace hoping to make that tire survive the few remaining minutes. It worked and I won the first race of the day by 4 laps over the #242 car and 5 laps over Rodney Schreck #4.
The second race would not go as well. After leading the Open Class for several laps, one of the rookie drivers crowded me into a traffic cone in turn 3. I came to a stop next to the front stretch curb and had the cone removed from under my right front axle. No damage and only a few seconds lost, I took off now in second place. Two laps later something on the track (rock? twig?) got tangled in my chain and locked up the idler sprocket. I unstrapped and pushed my car to the pits. Whatever it was must have fallen out because I could find nothing wrong. After a short test in the pits I climbed back in the car and got back in the race. Seven laps later the chain jumped off and my day was done. There were four cars in the Open Class and I got 4th place.:(
Today (Tuesday) I inspected and serviced the car (as I always do after a race) and discovered a mark on the side of the rear tire where something had gotten jammed into the chain idler. It had stretched the spring that tensions the idler and the sudden extreme chain tension also sprung the motor mount slightly, causing sprocket misalignment and the later thrown chain.:mad: I repaired all that today and replaced the chain in case it's damaged. It's good to go again. I guess I'll never know what got tangled in the chain; that is a freakish occurrence.:confused:
It sounds like you're doing pretty well. Could you make a guard to keep debris from getting at your chain again?
.
Sounds like a good outing to me! Congrats Mike!