2004 Middle

June 5, 2004, Vancouver BC, Canada

Motor

Dual Warfield 8 inch series-wound motors. (225 lbs.) Motors configuarable in either series or parallel wiring.

Drive type

Direct drive. Motor shafts connected with splined coupler between front and rear motors. Electric reverse.

Driveshaft

Two piece driveline with center carrier bearing. Front and rear driveline loops.

Rear axle

Replaced old chopped '57 Ford nine inch rear axle setup with all new 'Dutchman Motorsports' heavy duty Street-strip setup with 31 spline racing axles. More detailed photos can be found by clicking the 'Photos' button, then in the White Zombie sub-album area 'Beefing up the Zombie's Rear End'.

Ford 9 inch w/4:57 gears. Replaced previous minispool axle locker with a 'Detroit Locker' ratcheting axle locker.

New rear brakes. Air shocks & traction bars.

Wheels & Tires

Front - Eagle 5 spoke 13 x 5.5 alloys with 4 bolt Nissan rear drive offset and 175/50/13 Nitto Exit GS radials.

Rear - Eagle 5 spoke 14 x 6 alloys with 5 bolt Ford front drive offset and BF Goodrich 'TA Drag Radials' (24" dia.)

Batteries

20, 12 volt Exide 'Orbital' 50 ahr @ 240V nominal. Total pack weight 800 lbs.

Controller

Godzilla 1400 amp controller. Steering wheel thumb button for new controller bypass switching circuit.

12 volt system

Todd 20 amp DC-DC tapped at 1/2 pack voltage with Twin Exide 12V, 12 ahr small AGM batteries. Relocated the Todd DC-DC converter to the aluminum plate just behind the rear seatback bulkhead in preparation for mounting extra batteries in the third battery tray.

Other Mods

Removed and replaced contactor style 'Afterburner Bypass' with an all new high current liquid-cooled hockey puck style SCR controller bypass. The sci-fi looking device can be seen at the 5:00 position in photo below and consists of the large white and Blue SCR, the pink colored flyback diode on its heatsink, the pair of 140uf, 800 volt snubber capacitors, the copper buss bars, two contactors (above and below diode heatsink), and the fat 4/0 orange bypass cable.

Drilled 4 extra sets of mount holes in the third battery tray in preparation for an upgrade to 288V, but did not add the 4 extra batteries until after the Woodburn races. You can see the holes in the photo below. To make room for the extra batteries, the Todd DC-DC converter was moved from its former location in the third battery tray and relocated to the space vacated by the no-longer-used Bubba pack-splitter contactor on the aluminum bracket just behind the rear seatback bulkhead (11:00 position in photo).

Deleted the previous dump charger split pack relay & fuse system. The relays and two of the fuses were removed (below left) and a new setup was designed and installed (right).

As can be seen in the photos above, we also eliminated the dual runs of red (left photo) and dual runs of black 1/0 power cable. Both the positive and negative runs were replaced with single 4/0 cables, orange for the positive and black for the negative. The small black cable in the right photo above is a 4 gauge charging lead only, as the 4/0 black negative power cable is not shown in this view and comes directly off the negative-most battery terminal. (below) Tim Brehm does the dirty work of removing the old 1/0 cabling.

Car weight

2490 lbs. (est)

Races and EVents

6-5-2004, VEVA REV 2004 Car Show in Vancouver, BC Canada

6-13-2004, NW Datsun Owners Show & Shine Picnic

6-26-2004, SEVA's 'Gasless on Greenwood' car show. (left) White Zombie cruises Greenwood Avenue. (right) Lots of interested folks check out the car.

9-25-2004, Woodburn Nationals...best ET 13.654 @ 94.02 mph.

Carnage

  1. Pre-Woodburn race - Blew up new SCR bypass device.
  2. Woodburn - Welded new Albright contactor used as last minute controller bypass.
  3. Woodburn - Rear motor's output shaft Dutchman flange coupler had come loose and had slid back a half inch.
  4. Woodburn - First half of the two piece driveline shifted back against the carrier bearing to where the grease cup was scraping against the bearing's outer race.
  5. Woodburn - Both rear brake drums were dragging badly, to where it took two people to push the car on level ground.

Plasmaboy Quotes

  1. Pre-Woodburn races "I'm still trying to locate the 5000 amp SCR I need, as well as a 10,000 mfd, 400V cap. to make the new solid state afterburner. Once I get that up and running to where welded contactors no longer halt racing and the car can go on to make a 6th, 7th, 8th, etc., etc. run, as the battery pack continues to heat up internally, each consecutive run will get a bit quicker by a 1/10-2/10 second. I believe that a 12.7-12.8 @ 103-104 mph is possible while still retaining the 240V pack."
  2. Pre-Woodburn races "I'm trying hard to get all this done before Woodburn. I'll add in four more Exides and pump it up to 288V!!! That should drop the car into the mid 12's immediately. Who knows, maybe it will even dip to low 12's. The 288V pack should be capable of 400+ KW at 2600 amps...that's over 400 hp of battery power, and probably over the 300 hp mark at the motors. I'm hopeful, that the Zombie will shatter the current 13.18 @ 99.19 mph SC/A record with a mid 12 second run!"
  3. Pre-Woodburn races "Today will be spent on installing the four extra Orbitals, installing the new emergency disconnect mount (a super nice stainless steel Marko Mongillo - Wayland design that tilts the device, moves it more to where my right hand falls right to it, and makes it conform to NEDRA-NHRA specs with all high current conductors outside the car), and prepping the motor bay for the new killer SCR Afterburner bypass. Marko and I have the metal fab shop scheduled for a couple of nights this week to make up the new bracketry needed to support the monster liquid cooled SCR and cap. bank."
  4. Pre-Woodburn races "Tim Brehm and I worked until 12:30 last night assembling the Zombie's new full race prepped rear end setup...we were joined by Steve Schraub, a top notch forklift wrench, will be installing the new electric Line Lock this afternoon as I finish up the electrical mods under way. Dutchman Motorsports did their typical sano work on the Zombie's killer Ford nine inch axle setup, and it dropped in and fit perfectly. The car's driveline is now perfectly centered in the tunnel, and with NHRA approved drag axles, a Detroit Locker, Strange gears, new brake parts, and tires that just barely tuck under the fender lips while completely filling the little Datsun 1200's rear fender wells...I went with 'Plan B' for the disconnect side of the SCR Afterburner bypass array... a beefy freewheel diode will be switched into circuit during motor parallel and bypass operation to clamp back EMF, and when the high side contactor opens to shut down the SCR, twin 140 mfd, 800V non polarized film capacitors buss-bar connected to the contactor studs will, hopefully, absorb the flash-over energy between the opening contacts...If all this fails to take care of turn-off, I've still got the emergency pull-out disconnect at my right hand inside the car."
  5. Post Woodburn "The rear motor's output shaft flanged hub had come loose, even though all three of its set screws are doped with red Loctite, and it had slid back a half inch on the shaft towards the rear of the car."
  6. Post Woodburn "The first half of the two piece driveline, due to the slid-back motor hub, had shifted back against the carrier bearing to where the grease cup was scraping against the bearing's outer race."
  7. Post Woodburn "One of the emergency disconnect's BIG power cables had moved a bit and was being ground on by the front driveline stub."
  8. Post Woodburn "The front motor's splined output shaft hub that is part of the three piece motor-to-motor coupler, had come loose."
  9. Post Woodburn "Both rear brake drums were dragging badly, to where it took two people to push the car on level ground."