Electric Vehicle Research Project

Shaky Beginnings

The Electric Vehicle Research Project began as a gleam in the eyes of several Mechanical Engineering students and Dr. Dale Anderson and Dr. Jim Lowther.   The team of students included a certified auto body repairman and several novice dirt trackers.  The gleam in the team's eyes soon manifested itself in the physical form of a wrecked Volkswagen Rabbit.  Exhibiting rare, almost maniacal vision, the team saw the wrecked Rabbit as the winning entry in the Sunday Challenge at the Atlanta Speedway  in Atlanta, Georgia.

In short order the body man had the side swiped car in roadworthy condition with a gleaming white paint job.  Rewarding the efforts of the faculty on the team, General Electric donated an experimental 19 horsepower DC motor and controller.   It is at this point that the real engineering started with the problem solving flare characteristic of dirt trackers.

Several problems had to be overcome before the Rabbit could be a true "automobile:" the motor had to be coupled to the transmission and the batteries had to be accommodated.  And these are just the big problems.

Many schools and businesses that had entries in the Sunday Challenge contracted out the dirty work that the guys from Louisiana Tech did for themselves.   Dirty work such as the body restoration and painting, motor to transmission coupling, and battery installation.

Batteries were donated by Trojan.  Huge batteries.  The weight of the batteries all by themselves exceeded the gross vehicle weight of the Rabbit.   Undaunted, the Louisiana Tech team replaced the axle under the rear of the car.  You can see the big meaty axle under the car in the second picture on The Rabbit Page.  The team would be able to make the first competition.  Or so they thought.

Of course, batteries alone wouldn't make the car move; the motor had to be coupled to the transmission.  This was a very interesting problem that required a fast fix because the date of the competition was looming.  Being a front wheel drive vehicle, there was no room for a direct coupling of the motor to the transmission.   The 19 horsepower motor is small but not that small.  It is at this point that the dirt tracker experience really paid off.

Why not use a supercharger belt?  Believe it.  Those guys coupled the motor to the transmission with a belt!  Yet another problem arose out of using a belt.  Or at least out of the belt that they had purchased.  The belt was too long.  The day of the competition loomed ever nearer.  What to do!  What to do?  An idler pulley.   They simply intended to use an idler pulley to tension the belt.  It decreased the wrap of the belt on the driven and driving pulleys but it would do the trick.   But....

You guessed it.  Yet another difficulty.  The belt was so long there was, in the belt path they had chosen, no place to put the tensioner to tension the belt.  Lack of sleep, surely, resulted in their solution: cut the Rabbit's front crossmember to accommodate the idler pulley.  And so, the Rabbit was made ready for the first competition just in the nick of time.

A Day At the Races

Even getting to the races the team demonstrated the ingenuity characteristic of Tech graduates.  Using a rental truck to transport the Rabbit to Atlanta left the team with no easy way to load the car.  Planks were out of the question because of the excessive weight of the car.  There were no convenient embankments to back the truck up to.  Except one.  A dung heap.  With the sweet smell of cow manure in their nostrils and green stains on the soles of their shoes, the team was off to the races.

With competing teams that couldn't even figure out how to charge the batteries in cars built by contractors, the Louisiana Tech team easily won first place in the engineering portion of the judging.  The Tech team not only knew their vehicle, they had numbers to back up the design.  It was a very good show and a great statement for the quality of Tech's engineering students.

The real upset came with the performance competition.  In a fit of democratic spirit, the team drew straws to choose the car's driver.  No problem.   The guy who drew the shortest  straw hopped into the Rabbit and took off.   A very strong start.  Things looked great with the car in first gear.   The other team members could be seen unconsciously shifting phantom gears at the right time.  Unfortunately, the guy in the car had never driven a stick shift!   Once around the track in first.  Once again around the track in first.   You get the picture.

Fortunately, the performance competition included endurance.  Many cars were unable to make all the laps.  In first gear the Rabbit had no problem.   When all the points were added up the team and the Rabbit won fourth place. 

However, since the front crossmember was cut, the Rabbit started sagging.   Today, the front wheels sit still, gripping the ground trying to keep the Rabbit's belly from dragging.  The Atlanta race is the only competition that the Rabbit every participated in.

A New Hope  (see the pictoral history of the 64½ Mustang)

The year of the Atlanta competition was the last for the Mechanical Engineering students on the team.  They've all graduated and gotten jobs.  Only one student remains from the days of yore: the Electrical Engineering student who joined the team to install the motor controller, Glenn Moffett.  With the feel of the thrill of competition wafting through his mind, he joined Dr. Roots and Dr. Cox in the Electrical Engineering Department, along with Dr. Jim Lowther in the Mechanical Engineering Department, on a quest for a newer, faster, better electric car.

Beginning the quest with a '64½ Mustang that Dr. Roots' son knew about, they, along with James Weeks, the latest recruit, tried to decide if the rusted out old Mustang was worth a shot.  Infectious, that rare, certainly maniacal vision first exhibited by the Rabbit team reared its ugly head again.  "Give me a month and $2,000 and I'll have this thing in great shape," James said.  Dr. Roots and Glenn, the only other people who went to see the Mustang, were hooked.  James is not a certified auto body repairman.  And in short order that body repairman did not have the Mustang in roadworthy condition.

In addition to Glenn and James, Scott & Joe (pictured here) and Sabrina worked diligently for one full week to sandblast the shell of a Mustang. 

Six months and one traumatic 36 hour work frenzy later, the Mustang looked like this.

The Mustang Page