Electric Miata takes on 1/8 mile record

By John Metric

Well, the third annual First of the Year TX EV Drags is under our belts. We raced at Houston Motorsports Park after a rainout in Sealy on Saturday. We lost a lot of early commitals due to the HMP date was drag slicks only. Also, it started out 72degrees and about 20mph winds but turned chilly and about 57degrees by the last run.

The good news appears to be that there was no carnage and it appears EV conversion quality gets a lot better on your second car conversion. There weren't the annoying data communications issues and faults and trips like the Fiero build. We arrived at around 6:00 and even though the track claims a 7:00 start of racing, there were people already running down the track. I will have to leave even earlier next time to get more daylight run time. My CO2 bottle seemed to have run out somewhere overnight and it turns out that NOX works in the shifter just as well. So we may have ran the first EV with Nitrous. The PFC30 behaved very well, much better than our BRUSA 1.8kW and we got in four runs with time to chit chat in between runs. There were very few cars at our "event" which was run at a test n tune but noone else could run because it was a drag slicks only event. So our team ran solo again. We were joined by Adam Clark(team member, HEAA VP and NEDRA Gulf Coast Regional Director), Keith Howard (HEAA and Mustang club) who brought his Ford EV, Brent Norris driving a hybrid, Drist Cox, and my right hand man Nathan Metric.

We raced in the XS/A2 class/div. Current 1/8th mile record is held by Michael Kadie in 2-SSIC 8.053 at 81mph set in 2008.

So we started at 1000Amps and 99Volts since this was the first time for the car, Assault&Battery and the driver on drag slicks and a four link suspension.

We ran a
1.7262 60 ft
5.4863 330ft
8.9245 660ft at 66.99mph

I did not get a first gear shift and no overdrive shift. I realized we were not getting the overdrives to kick in for some reason because the car just seemed dead after about 330ft.

But the car left straight as an arrow and seemed to just glide down the track. We upped the amps to 1200A and volts to 160V

Results was
1.4855 60ft (better than any time ever posted by DCP)
4.4392 330ft
7.0877 660ft at 91.02mph

Again take off was like we were on glass. Smooth with none of the screetch that I am used to on DCP, just a gooey sticking noise. (listen to video) This time the second gear shift occurred just like on the street back home. But again no overdrive.

So up to 1700A at 170V
Result was
1.4045 60 ft
4.1249 330ft (that was better than any DCP time)
6.5924 660ft at 98.88mph (just missed the 100mph club.)

So we took a team vote, about trying to repeat the result for a record or risk losing traction by upping the settings. I told them that my calcs were that the 1.56 underdrive and 1500ftlbs was going to break the 28X14.5 tires loose. Team voted for max power! Way to go guys.

SO 2000Amps and 199Volts.
Result
1.3640 60ft (with a lot of tire spin, 20psi on the rear tires)
3.9700 330ft
6.7044 660ft at 78.78mph (car tripped at about 330ft)

So we didn't break 100mph but that was pretty good on a 22Ahr pack with LiPo cells that are nearly three years old and no overdrive. We will submit XS/A2 for 6.7044

Some pictures will be placed in the photo section and most of the Pictures and videos will be on our facebook site for Lonestar EV Racing Team and youtube DCPLASMARACING.

I hope all the members out there will try to organize an event even if it is just you. The crowds around the EV cars are just amazing. We had only a couple hundred people out there today and they all seemed to stop in our pit at one point of the evening. Thanks to our sponsors, Netgain Motors, Helwig Carbon, Wursthaus, RechargeCar.

Metric

A&B is Dual Netgain Warp9, Dual Zilla 2K-EHV, Lenco 2 speed, double GV overdrive, 2002 Mazda Miata.