Electric Hot Rod Conversion

by Sam
(United States)




Traditionally, street rods have been powered by fire breathing, and belching, large displacement V8's. Recently, Ford has supplied its Ecoboost engine for some conversions. This is a start, but obviously far from ideal! Are you aware of any hot rod builder who is exploring electrical power for their builds?

Hi, Sam -
I can't believe you didn't bring this up, but, green or not, an electric hot rod will blow the doors off a gas-guzzling equivalent - especially in the quarter mile.

And yeah, we EVers did figure that out pretty quick. A bunch of boys tinkering around in their garages with their electric cars soon figured out that putting an electric motor in your hot rod just makes a better hot rod. If it's liftoff you want, well, What better than a series wound DC electric motor?

Before long, there was a whole association devoted to the sport of building and racing your own inhumanly fast electric cars and motorcycles, and the association was called the National Electric Drag Racing Association, or NEDRA.

There's an associated NEDRA sport, unofficial as far as I know, which I call "building a really, really fast electric race car under the body of a little old beater."

...and then challenging the fire-breathing V-8's to race.

(Guess what happens.)

You'd think they'd get tired of eating the gas-gulpers for breakfast after a while, but no, it seems to be the gift that keeps on giving.

Check out Plasma Boy Racing to read about the White Zombie - in their own words, "The world's quickest street legal electric door slammer in the quarter mile drag."

I think it's down to 10 seconds now. Fast!

Regards,
Lynne

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