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We made a number of changes in the bike that really paid off! We made a huge dent in the overall electric vehicle 1/4 mile record this past weekend at the All Harley Drag Racing Association (AHDRA) meet in Chandler, AZ at the Firebird Speedway on March 30th through April 1st.

The Harley crowd went wild every time the KillaCycle came up to the line. They all cheered as the time when up on the scoreboard, dropping in leaps as the weekend event progressed. The last run on Sunday night was the quickest of them all at 8.168 @155.78MPH. This completely wiped out the long-standing top EV (dragster) record of 8.801 held by Dennis Berube for more than 6 years.

We all know it is quite a feat for a bike to take out a record set by a dragster, especially by such a large margin. This typically does not happen in drag racing, but we have the A123Systems Li-Ion batteries that make all the difference. They are more powerful than any other Li-Ion batteries produced. They hold so much energy, we could make 6 or 7 runs without recharging! It only takes about 10 minutes for us to recharge them in the pits, so we top them off for between every run. In electric drag racing, everyone knows “It’s all about the batteries.”

With the latest PFC-50 charger from Manzanita Micro, we can charge the bike in less than 5 minutes!

We made several changes that really boosted the performance for this event. We built a new battery pack with 990 A123Systems M1 Li-Ion cells (110 more than before.) We also implemented a contactor system that allows the bike to shift the motors from series connection on the launch, to parallel connection further down the track. This allows us to push 2000 amps through BOTH motors on the starting line to get something close to a total of 800 ft-lbs of torque. This results in about 2000 ft-lbs of torque on the back tire.

During test and tune on Friday, we couldn’t get the bike to autoshift the two drive motors from series to parallel configuration. (This electrical “shift” shift feels a lot like a two-speed transmission.) The bike was launching great (1.169 60ft) but was not pulling on the second half of the track. We rigged up a manual shift button that worked great for the weekend event. (We’ll upgrade the firmware in the motor controller to fix this bug for the next race.)

We are always making improvements, so it should not be too long before we get the KillaCycle down into the 7’s if our luck holds out. Our next planned event is the “Wayland Invitational EV Drag Race” at Portland, OR on July 13th and 14th.

>>> A few facts about the KillaCycle < <<<

A total of 990 A123Systems high-power M1 Li-Ion cells
1575 amps @75 Celsius
374 volts
300 kW peak, (~400 HP)
162 lbs of A123Systems M1 cells
~180 lbs total battery pack weight, with interconnects and battery management system electronics

Total bike weight (without rider) 619 lbs

Best ET = 8.168
Best Speed = 156.77 MPH

KillaCycle Team:
Scotty Pollacheck, Rider, Tires, Suspension set-up
Steve Ciciora, Electronic battery management system design, construction
Derek Barger, CNC and Electronics fabrication
Jonah Myerberg, Battery expert
Scot Colburn, BMS design, construction
Susan Lefebire, Videographer
Bill Dube’, Owner, Crew chief

When you think about it, the KillaCycle is just a giant cordless drill with wheels.

Click on pictures for larger image. Click on larger image for high-resolution image

There is an excellent, well-researched article in Designfax here:
http://www.manufacturingcenter.com/dfx/news/stories/feature-5.asp