» Radical Sportscars

Beautiful day, beautiful drive

Alex — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 21:53:03 +0000

For anyone in England on April 8th 2010, you will know of the beautiful weather we had on this day, and how it seemed to categorically signal the end of winter, and the start of those glorious summer days which seem forever just around the corner.

So, it was in this extremely buoyant and optimistic mood that Toby, Clemens and myself found ourselves up at Radical waiting/hoping for the second motor and motor controller to arrive. Suddenly, a TNT delivery van rolls past the open factory door, and comes to a loud stop. We rush outside into the blinding sunlight with visions of the car finally driving with both motors, and a fully completed car running through our heads! It was then that I pulled out my phone and recorded the following video: Fake Arrival of Motor and MC 2

As can be seen in the above video, said components did not arrive, and so it was with an anticlimax to end all anticlimaxes resting on our shoulders that we walked back into the factory. But fear not, gentle readers, our spirits were not entirely crushed as we then decided to down tools, put on the bodywork, and go for a quick drive in the setting sun.

What amazes us every time is how well the car just works! It starts like any other car, minus the noise of course, and pulls away with confidence and power (and that’s just with one motor!). Driving with the sun on our faces and the wind in our hair put the disappointment of a few hours earlier completely out of our minds!

Tomorrow should actually see the arrival of the motor and controller!

And now for a couple of pics from the last few weeks:

SRZero Gets Some New Wheels!

Alex — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 20:52:54 +0000

Another few days have passed and yet more has happened in the world of Racing Green Endurance! On Wednesday 22nd we took the car back up to Peterborough to put the final touches to the car and to put the car through some testing on Radical’s dynamometer.

So, over the last few days we have modified the suspension by changing the springs, pushrods, length of dampers, and overall ride height; something which was desperately needed! However, we were still riding on some pretty massive tyres as can be seen in previous photos. But then something very cool happened…8 custom rims, courtesy of a sponsorship from Image Wheels, arrived! With the help of some Radical technicians, we fitted our Continental-sponsored tyres to them (can you believe that a bunch of engineers don’t know how to fit a tyre on a rim! We do now though!) and whipped them on the car. With the new ride height it looked a little retro, but the colours match the car really well, and we’re very happy with them! They’re light too…

Next up included work on the rear battery pack, which was completely disassembled and rewired into our new foam, and also the mounting of various battery-related components (mainly BMS slave boxes) around the car was completed.

Then came the dyno testing where we put the car through it’s paces. A dynamometer, for all you non-geeks, is basically a treadmill for a car…it allows it to spin the wheels without going anywhere. In addition, the stiffness of the roller can be altered to simulate different loads on the car. This enabled us to test the efficiency of the powertrain, which was higher than initially estimated, and well over 90% for much of the cycle. For the first time, we tried out some brand new software from Rinehart Motion Systems which allowed the motor controllers to slip into the field weakening region and reach a speed in excess of 100mph…a big relief for the team! Besides a few very minor issues, everything went exceptionally well!

Oh, and we did some more driving too Check out some of the pictures below! Videos of the car running and on the dyno will come soon!

KPMG Come on Board

Toby — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 09:04:00 +0000

At the end of last year the team was invited to present to KPMG’s International Director of Corporate Citizenship, Lord Hastings, at the House of Lords. The team was keen to do a good job and knew we had to get the presentation right. To give ourselves the best chance we held numerous practice sessions with the team providing feedback to one another on their relevant sections until we got it right. Nevertheless when the day came there was a tense mix of excitement and anticipation.

Inside the room we met Lord Hastings and he introduced himself and put us all instantly at ease. We started the presentation at it seemed to grab his attention almost instantly. But fairly quickly it turned into an interactive discussion, with Lord Hastings asking several challenging questions to the team.

And then after 40 minutes or so it was over. He wished us luck, said that he liked the project and would be in touch. It had gone as well as we could have expected and so the team left in buoyant mood, even stopping for a bit of site seeing in the House of Parliament. Then we had to go outside and do a bit of filming with Claudio before heading back to work on the car.

A couple of weeks later Lord Hastings was in touch with a message. It said that they were impressed by the project and KPMG would like to become a gold sponsor of the project. This was fantastic news for the whole team and we are all extremely grateful to KPMG for supporting our project. Along with our exisiting sponsors, their support will help the team make this project as successful as possible!