Electric Speedster

With all the talk about Type I vs Type IV, vs Subaru, vs Bio-diesel, I though I would throw another idea into the mix.

www.electroauto.com/catalog/kits.shtml#voltsporsche

These guys sell everything you need to bolt an electric motor up to your existing transmission. Range and speed depend on how many batteries you have. Granted, you would have to add about 1100lbs (20 6volt) batteries to make this work, and I'm sure the fun factor would not be nearly as good as good old gasoline, but you never know what the future may hold.

Hell, check this out

www.acpropulsion.com/tzero_pages/tzero_home.htm

That's an electric car that would smoke anything anyone here has. Granted it costs more than my house.

I'm thinking about getting an old beater 914 and trying to build out a commuter car once I'm finished with my speedster.

Check out www.nedra.com/

for the electric car drag classes!

Yeah, but wouldn't it be cool to "donate" a Speedster sans engine to some place like WPI or MIT to turn into an electric screamer?

Think how a rice burner would feel to have something come up beside him, TOTALLY quiet, and then absolutely SMOKE him off the line...

And a silent Speedster, none the less!

There is a complete kit on ebay now -- ends tomorrow -- current bid is $785!

cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=33615&item=7929834676&rd=1

Now look here Professor.Nichols!

Are you INSANE! Quiet running? Why it goes against the nature of man, I say!

With speed must come the SOUND of speed, that's why we all tied balloons and clipped cards to our bicycle spokes. If man were to attain a degree of speed and acceleration without the accompanying sound to alert his brain to impending danger, why, his heart would no doubt stop beating in his very chest! In his very chest I tell you.

Good GOD, man. What are we? Animals!?!?!

Yeah, I think that's where my Mickey Mantle rookie cards went, on my bike.
Think about it, If you've ever been to a bike week anywhere, do you think those guys would ride harleys if they were quiet?
ed

I now have full recollection as to where my Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris cards got to....
Bound to the front fender brace on my 20" red Schwinn bike.
I soon discovered that while riding, I could tune the cards by moving the clothes pin with my foot....that is, until the front wheel spokes ingested Mickey and Roger...my foot and a new US Keds sneaker!

Alan,

Same thing happened to me, almost. Foot went into the spokes ruined my Red Balls and I went over the bars chin first into the street. Still have the "smile" scar under my beard. A small stone imbedded itself under the skin of my upper lip and popped like a pimple a year later. What a mess of blood and puss ! ! !

The THINGS we did as kids ! ! !

TC

I'm sure you could add a resonator of sorts with all the mney you would save feeding the Oil Wars. I'm in! I'll pay for all the parts, if someone with more money than me will pay the highly trained mechanics. BTW, I'm in Milwaukee, WI, where no one seems to know how to work on standard air-cooled cars unless they are their own.

Well, if I DID convert to silent electric, taking along the Jack Russells would always assure me of plenty of noise, especially with passersby on the sidewalks....

I remember driving the turnpike into Maine a year ago, and pulled into the toll booth at the same time as one of those Honda Electrics (I think it was a hybrid). I was in my F150 pickup and wondered what kind of acceleration those things have.

This car left the toll booth like a shot! Easily kept up with the F150, then PASSED me and accelerated up to about 85 MPH and held it there!

Took me a while to get my jaw up off my lap...

All I can say is that a speedster version of that tzero would be AWESOME!!! 20k bucks though? I'll stick with the old gas version

But it is all very expensive....

I think you'd get used to not having the engine sound and actually start to like over time...

TC In responce to the silent speedster. I luv to here the engine rev up.
Id have to build something else if I went electic, and only then to dodge high gas prices, If things go crazy

I wonder if there is enough room in the speedster to get all the batteries you need to have anything of a range? But, they do convert bugs, too and there isn't that much more room in them either. Hmmm...

Rec'd this the other day...don't know that I agree with all of it but I don know I lived most...

TO ALL THE KIDS WHO SURVIVED
THE: 1930's 40's, 50's, 60's and 70's

First, we survived being born to mothers who smoked and/or
drank while they carried us. They took aspirin, ate blue cheese dressing, tuna from a can, and didn't get tested for diabetes.

Then after that trauma, our baby cribs were covered with bright colored lead-based paints. We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, doors or cabinets and when we rode our bikes, we had no helmets, not to mention, the risks we took hitchhiking.

As children, we would ride in cars with no seat belts or air
bags. Riding in the back of a pick up on a warm day was always a special treat.

We drank water from the garden hose and NOT from a bottle. We shared one soft drink with four friends, from one bottle and NO ONE actually died from this.

We ate cupcakes, white bread and real butter and drank soda pop with sugar in it, but we weren't overweight because WE WERE ALWAYS OUTSIDE PLAYING!

We would leave home in the morning and play all day, as long as we were back when the streetlights came on. No one was able to reach us all day. And we were O.K.

We would spend hours building our go-carts out of scraps and then ride down the hill, only to find out we forgot the brakes. After
running into the bushes a few times, we learned to solve the problem.

We did not have Playstations, Nintendo's, X-boxes, no video games at all, no 99 channels on cable, no video tape movies, no surround sound, no cell phones, no personal computers, no Internet or Internet chat rooms..........WE HAD FRIENDS and we went outside and found them!

We fell out of trees, got cut, broke bones and teeth and there were no lawsuits from these accidents. We ate worms and mud pies made from dirt, and the worms did not live in us forever.

We were given BB guns for our 10th birthdays, we made up games with sticks and tennis balls and although we were told it would happen, we did not put out very many eyes.

We rode bikes or walked to a friend's house and knocked on the door or rang the bell, or just walked in and talked to them!

Little League had tryouts and not everyone made the team. Those who didn't had to learn to deal with disappointment. Imagine that!!

The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke the law was unheard of. They actually sided with the law!

This generation has produced some of the best risk-takers, problem solvers and inventors ever! The past 50 years have been an explosion of innovation and new ideas.

We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and we learned how to deal with it all! And YOU are one of them!


CONGRATULATIONS!
You might want to share this with others who have had the luck to grow up as kids, before the lawyers and the government regulated our
lives for our own good.

And while you are at it, forward it to your kids so they will
know how brave their parents were.

Kind of makes you want to run through the house with scissors,
doesn't it?

That was cool. My son is seven, lives in Montana and has never thought twice about going outside to play. Honest and true: Fire academy classes have to start recruits out these days on step-ladders before they throw extensions at the training tower because many have never been more than one storey up in a tree. I made that connection, but nine of ten are honestly able to say they have never climbed anything other than stairs.
How odd is that? I have always liked climbing. Put me on the ladder truck, Captain!
Back to the electric car thingie; I've often wondered if going electric would be a Speedie thing to do. There was a guy in Cali who decked out a 550 with a really heavy ring of batteries and a huge electric motor (didn't check all the links out, sorry) and had a range of a hundred and twenty-odd miles.
http://www.ohler.com/ev/spyder/history.html
I'd do that. As a rescue guy, though, I'd also have to put those batteries in a really well-protected series of trays or a tube-steel framework. There's huge suck potential there if they split their cases, especially in an open tub.
Has anyone checked out the hybrid chassis (plural) where the bottom surface of the car is the battery? That would be the tech I'd jump on board with if it was an option.
Something like the hydrogen hoopty here:
http://www.aluminum.org/ANTemplate.cfm?IssueDate=03/01/2003&Template=/ContentManagement/ContentDisplay.cfm&ContentID=7162

Someone in the Carolinas (w w w.rtpnet.org/~teaa/pictures.html) did an electric speedster. I will try and get details...

HYBRID is the way to do it. Needs just a few batts. badabing, at LEAST 50mpg with xclnt acceleration. Silent running around town and then the engine cuts in for us noise junkies!

I agree that hybrid is the way to go, for now. At the very least on batteries alone, you are looking at 480lbs or even more to lug around. I think I may just try this to see if it is feasible.

Doesn't the Hybrid Yota Prius use like 275V for the electric engine? --- more than I want to mess around with. Just the 70 HP regular Prius engine would be fine (combo is 114). I think a hybrid conversion would be just too complicated -- some conversions would require even different transaxels. And don't some use wheel located electric motors? Now if you could throw in the $2000 tax break!

I was looking in a book from 1993 "Build Your Own Electric Car" and there was a dealership in Hollywood, CA, Green Motorworks, that offered an electric speedster replica. (For $33K in 1993, yikes!) Does anyone know how many were made by chance?

Also I saw on the web a 359 converted to electric power. (As well as a 911 dolled up to be either a 959 or 993 twin turbo).