jonescg's NEW electric racebike BUILD thread!

jonescg said:

I guess now I can put some more battery build photos up. Mike took some great pictures of us while the 6 kWh pack was being built, and they are all up on Farcebook, but I can't see them since I'm not part of that machine.

But some pictures of the enclosure were taken while I was putting it together in Perth.



Although this pack now has a big heap of vacant space up top, I didn't have the bike in front of me to design a more space efficient design. At least I knew that this pack format would drop right in, and it did It's about 50 mm shorter than the big pack, as we wanted to give Pottz more ground clearance at lean. The 9 kWh pack doesn't stick out too much, but the added weight meant the suspension was more compressed, so it was closer to the ground.

If I had the bike in front of me I would probably make it all fit in one 'tower' with the control box right on top and a longer Anderson connector lead, but hey, this one is working well for now.

Click to expand...

Well done Chris. Starting to get interesting now. Last race coming up and good to get some GPS logging data back about the top speed. Be interesting to see what it's actual top speed is.

With full field weakening and the current gearing I reckon 270 km/h is not out of the question. This will tax the smaller battery pretty hard though, so we'll have to get some logging happening to find out what the current draw is at these power levels.

We worked out that if we had about 40 more amps of field weakening, Pottz would have been doing 240 km/h before he needed to start braking :lol:

http://speedweek.com.au/speedweek-ep-1021-august-31-2014-part-2/

Skip to 33 minutes to see a highlights reel of the racing at Winton last August.

Hey Everybody!

Voltron Evo is back in Perth! It's not a cheap exercise, but we are taking this 2 month break in the racing schedule to get some track tuning and testing done while we can. We're going to be up at Wanneroo Raceway on Sunday (hopefully a bit drier than Saturday's forecast) to do some testing in a non-race environment.

Best of all, we are allowed to enter Voltron in to the Club 1000 class of Round 5 of the WA State Championships! Unfortunately Pottz has to work that weekend, so we've got another local racer, Paul Cox to steer the bike. The MCRCWA have been really supportive of us, but as this is a competition round they've conservatively put us at the back, starting from pit lane. Bit of a shame, as I was looking forward to watching Coxy claim 10 places in the first 3 seconds :lol:

So come on up to Barbagallo on Sunday the 28th of September, and again on the following Saturday for some Electic vs Gas bike comparisons!

Sunday has more racing action, but not Club 1000.

PIT LANE ?????????????????
what freeking whiney chinless numpty bureaucrat wobbleheads......
So you don't even get a tire warming lap, worse you have to sit in pit lane letting your tires cool down.

Yeah, it's a little bit disappointing, but then again, this is the final round of a competition where guys are hungry for points.

If they were being beaten or held up by a bike which didn't technically satisfy the class rules, they would have grounds to appeal.

So I can see where they're coming from, and this is probably the best way to do it. We aren't out to win points in the state round, rather just demonstrate what's possible. Besides, it will be good to watch him pick riders off from the back


In other exciting news - My GSXR1000, which was stolen almost two years ago, has been recovered from a raid on a house in Ellenbrook! WA Police, you have just redeemed yourselves! I have no idea what state it's in, but hopefully it will still turn a wheel.

What to do with it though? I'm not sure I could ever sell it again, but that would be the best option. I need the cash and I don't have the room. Alternatively I can donate it to another conversion, possibly with one of Mike's YASA motors... Interesting times ahead

Well, what a day!

It was great to have the bike back at Wanneroo, and even better that we weren't trying to win races, where messing with settings would screw us up too much. Last time we had the bike at Barbs Pottz was doing 70 second laps, but we had a top speed of 170 km/h (still hadn't tuned the field weakening) and the heavy battery pack.

Straight out with no changes, 68 second laps were the norm. All that was different was more top speed and less weight, but it's worth getting a baseline first. We couldn't get a full charge in before the next session, so we went out with about 2/3rds charge. We took it to LVC, which is not ideal, but well within the pack's capability. So we held off for another session and gave it a full charge after 1.5 hours.

It wasn't until we lowered the entire bike by about 20 mm that the big times were dropping. We pulled the forks through another 20 mm and wound the ride height right back to the stop. The lower ride meant that the bike didn't buck and wobble under hard brakes, so Pottz could push his brake markers back further each time.

Paul Cox threw his leathers on and took it out for 5 laps, since he will be riding it in the State Champs race next Saturday. You couldn't wipe the giant shit-eating grin off his face :lol: "It wheelies up Skyline! It wheelies out of the basin! It wheelies out of turn 7!... and the POWER!" Can't wait to see that video again...

Pottz took it out for a session where they were doing practice starts. This was awesome - lined up on the grid with a dozen ICE bikes screaming their tits off, slipping the clutch as they risk a jump start. And Danny just winds it on and blows them away After watching that, the competition guys at MCRCWA reversed their pit lane start decision :wink:

Lots of impressed punters at the track today, but best of all, we have Voltron handling better than ever. It brakes well, tips in well, holds a line and powers out without running wide. Front end still needs work, but the geometry is almost bang on, and the lap times are showing. I can't afford to renew my race license this year, so I didn't take it on the track but I did go for a squirt around the pits. It's so much nicer to flick around and it's braking so much more smoothly without pitching or bucking.

Both paul and Danny were putting in solid 65 second laps, which is pretty good for Wanneroo. In Club 1000 we'll be quicker than 60% of the field, so we're not going to be in the way of the keen guys.

Happy days for team O'Hanlon Electric Motorsports!!!

This is so good, and I especially like the "shit-eating grin" part

Great work!

Good to hear the bike is handling better.
The Gixxer was only 15km away from your place !!
I had my CBR out at SMP today and had a huge slide in T4 that kicked back and threw me up over the handle bars but I landed back down on the bike with heart racing, another lucky save.
After that I noticed my left boot felt a bit slippery on the peg and spotted a slight oil leak, bloody ICE bikes.
Im glad I ride lectrics.
David was also out there with his Zero SR and someone hit him in the high speed T8 right in the rear pully and broke it then proceeded to crash his bike into the gravel.
David also went off track but managed a lucky save.

RIPPERTON said:

Good to hear the bike is handling better.

Click to expand...

Yeah, big gains today. All it took was some time and a non-race-weekend to make some changes. Still plenty left in it too, as Danny was starting to get within a stone's throw of his 600 brake markers.

RIPPERTON said:

The Gixxer was only 15km away from you place !!

Click to expand...

I know!! Apparently there was a big police operation where half a million bucks worth of stolen property was seized. My bike showed up amongst one of them, ins some bloke's living room. Hopefully it's still in good condition and I can get it back to a saleable state. I don't actually want it, and don't have the room for it anyway.

RIPPERTON said:

I had my CBR out at SMP today and had a huge slide in T4 that kicked back and threw me up over the handle bars but I landed back down on the bike with heart racing, another lucky save.
After that I noticed my left boot felt a bit slippery on the peg and spotted a slight oil leak, bloody ICE bikes.
Im glad I ride lectrics.

Click to expand...

That's the slightly downhill right-hander?

Yeah, plug in, charge... wait... ride. Hard to go back hey? Pottz took a mates Gixxer600 for a couple of laps, but stalled it cause he forgot to use the clutch :lol:

jonescg said:

That's the slightly downhill right-hander?

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Yup, downhill approach, uphill exit. I call it a G turn.
That's what you get for trying to put 170hp through 5 year old slicks.
A month after I had this bike on Ebay someone is actually interested in it. 10k woo.

RIPPERTON said:

David was also out there with his Zero SR and someone hit him in the high speed T8 right in the rear pully and broke it then proceeded to crash his bike into the gravel.
David also went off track but managed a lucky save.

Click to expand...

Far out! How do you just run into the back of another rider? I mean, the responsibility lies with the one behind to not hit the one in front... Glad he was OK though.

Hope he can get the bike back into shape before the last round.

Saturday was a good day for getting some new settings for the suspension. Being a race day, we had to start tuning :lol:

Paul Cox took Voltron out for a half dozen laps and was doing some consistent 66 s laps. He said at this pace it was handling very well, but the front end felt rather wooden in the turns. So we got a local suspension 'guru' to have a look and of course, everything was all wrong . He added some more preload and opened up the rebound damping a bit, to what he felt should be better. He went slower :lol: I'm beginning to take less notice of self-proclaimed suspension gurus, particularly in a situation where we have a completely new system with no baseline.

Race one started well, but Paul pulled into the pits to change it back to the original settings. He took off in a hurry, only to return after another lap. As he was now pushing harder, the front end was not up to the task. The black flag was literally handed to him - speeding in pit lane :lol: He knew better.

[youtube]nDhu7ODW8SM[/youtube]

Race two was all good, and we tried pulling the forks lower into the triples, effectively raising the front quite a bit. A crash in turn one meant red flags, and a full race restart. We only had the small pack in, so there was no way we could make the distance. After a few more laps we came in to try a few things. The program was speeding along very well, so by the time race three came up we had only got about 2/3rds of a charge into the 6 kWh pack.

Race three was good, even though it was another 4 or 5 lap effort. Paul found a sweet spot for the fork height, and was doing 65s without too much trouble. By this stage our tyres were starting to spin up out of turns, and the front was getting loose too.

So all up, not a great day of racing, but good to get some more baseline settings for the bike. The MCRCWA have been very accommodating for us, even changing the class regulations to include electric bikes. So we're good to race, compete and collect points, if we so desire. And it's great to start from the grid too!

[youtube]ArJJqouIpo4[/youtube]

Anymore racing coming up Chris. Good to see voltron starting from the grid.

Hey Rodney,

Hopefully we will have a bit of racing coming up with the Kings of Wanneroo, 1-2 November. Will have to see if Danny is allowed to race with them - there are grading issues where a B-grader cannot race in Club 1000. You will be the first to know if we're up

Sadly, my stolen bike was not the one I looked at today. The local constabulary only checked the VIN and didn't cross-reference the engine number. The bike at the yard was totally different to my bike. It was clear that they had frocked with this bike, but nothing was matching. It had road fairings, Yoshi exhaust, mirrors etc etc. Also, it had no chain, missing gear selector, clutch cable was severed... I had given the police the VIN: JS1B6121300, as these were the embossed numbers on the plate. However there were 6 more characters stamped on the plate, which did match with the recovered bike's engine number - so no dice.

I was also up for a $290 recovery fee, which even if I'd paid for it, it wasn't my bike, nor was it one I wanted.

Sigh.

I was just watching an episode of Cycle Torque and a short story on electric bike racing came on with Danny Ripperton and Chris being interviewed with the Evo at Winton raceway on ch 74 , I did record it so can get it up on you tube if wanted,

cheers mark

That'd be great Mark! However there might be copyright issues. Chris Pickett (Cycle Torque) will normally re-stream them on his website a month or two later, but you might get sneaky

Heres to being sneaky

[youtube]pDYFtk6M7C0[/youtube]

Great work guys

Congratulations on taking the fight to the gas bikes! I'm also glad to hear that they've opened their series to electrics as well, which is a big win for the industry. It's great running the all-electric races, but we've found that competing against the gas bikes is what stimulates the biggest improvements.



I just wish that someone could pull together a series or event that would bring all these bikes together to race as it looks like you're having all the fun over there!

It's been great this year - fast bikes, more entries and new faces. I reckon Oz might well wind up being a hotbed of E-moto innovation. Nothing like being unable to buy something off the shelf to drive you to come up with something good.

SBS Speedweek usually does a little section on on the Electrics, but they kept it to rolling footage and background rock music. Which it actually pretty good, really. You can see Voltron take off in a hurry from 38 minutes:

http://speedweek.com.au/speedweek-ep-1026-october-5-2014-part-2/

Stay tuned for more racing, and the final round of eFXC at Sydney Motorsports Park, 21st November.

Pottz managed to sneak down to Collie Motorplex on Sunday for the day. He was just playing around as he was coaching group 3 riders about race lines etc.

He said he was coming around the last corner and seeing a stack of big black lines, progressively adding up on the exit. He was thinking "Whoah, cool, one of the coaches must be having a bit of fun this afternoon!"

Till he got back and one of the coaches said "You're leaving big black lines all over the track! Cool!" :lol:

It's not how fast you go, but whether or not you paint the circuit with rubber

[youtube]6S0cYONmRYI[/youtube]

Getting the front end sorted this week - should be going proper quick soon.

Thanks for posting the video Chris. Voltron looks to be going well and Danny would of enjoyed going though the field like that picking then off one at a time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_lHfpcY2Pdk&feature=youtu.be

Pottz had a day at Wanneroo - mostly waiting for the weather to improve, but he got a few sessions in with the new front end mods. He's chasing down a Ducati 1098 here.

Yes, it wheelies up the hill - not just over the hill

Nicely done Chris, glad to see your getting the front sorted.

If anyone in Perth is interested, Voltron Evo will be at Waneroo again tomorrow (Friday) for practice sessions. We won't be racing in Kings of Wanneroo, but I strongly suggest you get up for a look. We'll be dialling in the suspension, and trying a couple of new settings, but mostly just getting some good saddle-time. We will also be up there on Sunday showcasing the bike while the main event (Kings) is on. Mike will also be announcing some exciting news from O'Hanlon Electric Motorsport, so get on up!

Entry on Friday is free, but entry on Sunday will cost you $20, kids under 15 are free.