1998 Late

Motor:

11 inch race-modified Kostov (178 lbs.)

Drive type:

Extreme duty 'Clutchnet' full race clutch featuring a three puck solid copper disc and extreme duty pressure plate.

Driveshaft:

Removed and replaced previous heavy duty drive line with an all new small diameter thick-walled tubing type driveline for side clearance within the tunnel due to the offset pinion of the new Ford 9 inch rear end assembly.

Rear axle:

Replaced Datsun rear axle assembly with a chopped & narrowed '57 Ford nine inch axle setup out of a V8 Chevy LUV minitruck. Ford 9 inch differential fitted with 3:25 gears and welded spider gears. The two pictures below show how the axle housing is asymetrical, with the left side being longer than the right. This placed the differential more towards the passenger side. The pinion input of the big Ford diff. is offset to the right as well, so the driveline was very close to scraping the passenger side wall of the driveshaft tunnel.

Wheels & Tires

Front - Retained the 13 x 5.5 American Racing 4 spoke with 175/50/13 Pirelli P7 tires.

Rear - The new rear axle setup with its Ford 5 bolt pattern required a wheel change. In an attempt to stay with the 'American Racing' theme, we selected 14 x 7 chrome American Racing 5 spoke 'Coke bottle' rims. Due to now having 14's in back instead of 13s, a tire change was also in order. Sticky Mickey Thompson junior dragster sized baby wrinkle wall drag slicks (20" dia.) were mounted up, but the wheel-tire combo didn't fit too elegantly in the back of White Zombie. The new rims were the wrong offset, they stuck out too far from the fender wells, and they were chromed steel and didn't match the front wheels with their rough-cast aluminum spokes, so the cool look of the matched set of 4 spoke 'Libre' American Racing aluminum alloy wheels with the unusually wide 7 inchers tucking up under the rear fender lips (fronts were a narrower 5.5 inches), a look that the car had sported since '94, was gone. The new rear wheels and tires looked tacky, but they got the job done.

Batteries

28, 12 volt Hawker Genesis 16ahr @ 336V nominal, 378 lbs. total pack weight.

Controller

Godzilla 1200 amp programable controller

12 volt system

Baby Optima YT, no DC-DC - external charging required.

Other Mods

Air shocks added

Flat steel traction bars removed, new yellow colored square tube traction bars added.

Car weight

2080 lbs. (est.)

Races and EVents

8-29-1998 'Woodburn Unplugged'... Plasma Boy and White Zombie go through tech inspection

1st run, a badly slipping clutch gave a very slow start but the car picked up up speed rapidly and still ran 15.586 @ 84.58 mph. 2nd run, after adjusting the clutch, it grabbed, so did the wrinkle walls...broke tranny on launch...non-completed run.

Carnage

  1. Burnt pressure plate, massive slipping off line and during shifts.
  2. Broke tranny with a sheared-off output shaft!

Plasmaboy Quotes

  1. Pre-Woodburn "I have a history of breaking stuff and not doing as well in my ETs as I and many others have hoped for. When you get to this power level, off-line traction is SSOOO important! I've finally taken steps to cure this situation...this weekend Mark Mongillo and I are pulling the entire Datsun rear setup out and will be replacing it with a narrowed V8 Ford 8 inch setup, complete with near ideal 3.25 gears...new 8 x 14 x 20.3 wrinkle wall slicks."
  2. Post-Woodburn "The Zombie first toasts its clutch and looses badly to Rod Wilde, and second, as the readjusted clutch bites the wrinkle walls bite, the 9 inch Ford rear end digs in, and the Kostov has its way with the tranny!"
  3. Post-Woodburn "White Zombie is getting an automatic...Since the 336v Godzilla/Kostov combo (500 ft. lbs. of torque) snapped off the transmission output shaft in the Zombie...wait until the Powerglide is installed for a ride..."