SVT Superfest 2011!!!

Last Saturday, some members of the team showed the car off at the SVT Superfest, which was held at Virginia International Raceway(VIR) amongst hundreds of other Ford vehicles. Our Mustang turned heads and received multiple looks of confusion and curiosity from many of the visitors.
Participants from many states flocked to VIR for the SVT Superfest to show off their cars, check out other great cars, and race their vehicles on the VIR track. Our team participated mainly in the car show on Saturday to spread the message about our project. The team answered numerous questions about the car while checking out other cars at the show. A little after lunch, Mr. Butler drove the car in two parade laps around the track just to have fun and enjoy the car. He got the Mustang up to 75 mph, which is the fastest the car has gone so far, while testing the handling and suspension in a road setting.

Our Mustang staging for parade laps.

The Mustang taking some parade laps.

Our Mustang in line for parade laps.

Our Mustang with our sponsor board and a banner provided by Late Model Restoration. Late Model Restoration has been one of our project's biggest sponsors by donating valuable a parts for the Mustang.

EV Challenge May 21-22, 2011

This past weekend, our team traveled to Garysburg, NC to the EV Challenge event where we pushed our car to its limits. The car underwent multiple mechanical and electrical inspections before being tested in maximum range and an autocross event. The event was held at the North Carolina Center for Automotive Research ( NCCAR) located in Garysburg.The NCCAR facility features a 2.03 mile ride and handling course as well as six private garages and 2 large conference rooms that suited the needs of the EV Challenge very well this past weekend. The NCCAR facility is still under construction, and is planned to be an even greater research facility in the future.

On Saturday, all inspections and the range event were held for all of the electric vehicles. Our vehicle placed second in vehicle design behind Mount Vernon High School, located in Iowa. Oral presentations and troubleshooting events were held on Saturday as well. The troubleshooting event consists of 21 multiple-choice questions as well as finding two faults on a special board that represents an electric vehicle circuit. Our team placed second overall and first in the car class in the troubleshooting event on Saturday. The oral presentation consists of students presenting a 5 to 7 minute speech on a subject relating to electric vehicles. This year's subject pertained to Lithium ion batteries and their effects on a vehicle's inertia. Our team placed sixth overall in oral presentation on Saturday.

After the oral presentation and troubleshooting events, all of the electric vehicles participated in the range event on the 2 mile ride and handling course. Our vehicle performed exceptionally well in the range event, traveling approximately 35 miles on one charge, earning our team second place in the range event. Hunter Foulks was the driver of the Mustang in the range event. Our vehicle placed second behind Mount Vernon High School's Pontiac Fiero and before Weaver Academy's Mazda RX 7.

The autocross event was held on Sunday, where all of the teams out their cars to the test on a small agility course. Traffic cones were set up in multiple positions to create different obstacles for the vehicles. Quintin Dickerson was our team's driver for the autocross event, and he performed well in the autocross, averaging approximately 33 seconds on each run. Our Mustang placed second in the car class in the autocross event behind Mount Vernon High School's Pontiac Fiero and ahead of Weaver Academy's Mazda RX 7.

Overall, the EV Challenge this past weekend was a great success for our program, allowing our team to analyze our vehicle's strengths and weaknesses, as well as allowing the team to see all of our hard work pay off. Some strengths the team noticed about our Mustang included successes in design and impressive handling during the autocross event. Some weaknesses for our vehicle included a lack in range as well as the lack of a clutch in our transmission. The goal for our Mustang now is to upgrade from lead-acid batteries to lithium-ion batteries in order to reduce weight while increasing power. This goal can be achieved through the support of our sponsors and the hard work of our students.

Our Mustang is weighed before undergoing technical and electrical inspections.

Hunter and Quintin explain the mechanics of our Mustang to a EV Challenge judge during technical inspection.

Hunter and Quintin explain to the judges the wiring of our vehicle during electrical inspection.

Topsail High School's 2001 Ford Ranger before the range event.

West Wilkes High School's 2000 Mazda Miata.

Mount Vernon High School's 1988 Pontiac Fiero.

Dudley High School's 1990 Mazda B220 pickup.

Weaver Academy's 1987 Mazda RX 7.

Hunter and Quintin in an interview about our electric vehicle.

All of the electric vehicles staging for the range event on Saturday.

A new Tesla Roadster that served as the pace car for the range event.

Quintin driving the Mustang in the autocross event on Sunday.

Quintin takes on a tight turn in the Mustang during the autocross event.

Quintin finishes an autocross run on Sunday.

To check out more photos of the EV Challenge, check out our Picasa album and our school's website at Lab306.com. All of the cars that were at the event are featured in our album. We also have video clips of different school's autocross runs on our Youtube channel.

Overall, we are pleased with the results of our vehicle this year and we hope to improve the Mustang this summer by upgrading batteries to lithium-ion and improving our voltage to 156v.

Final Preparations

Now it's down to the wire. The competition is tomorrow, and the team is still rushing to make final adjustments and finish all of the wiring. Most of all of the rest of the components of the vehicle are in place and ready to go. Right now, Mr. Butler and the rest of the team are working on finishing the wiring process before this afternoon. The trouble shooting and oral presentation teams are studying their individual fields in order to be ready for tomorrow, while some of the others are working on finishing the car. The whole team looks forward to attending the EV Challenge this weekend, and competing with schools from around the United States.

Mr. Butler, Hunter, Eli, and Tyler check out new wheels and tires purchased for our car.
The tires are Kumho Escta XS in size 255/40/17 and were purchased from Claybrook tire in Stoneville, NC. The wheels are 17x9 SC wheels w/ rivets purchased from cruizin concepts

Hunter installs the new wheels and tires.

Clinton installs covers onto the battery terminals for added safety as well as to make the car look better.

Tyler and Clinton making safety labels for the on/off switch and for the battery banks.

Spencer studies for the troubleshooting portion of the EV Challenge. Spencer will be assisted by Eli in the final event this weekend.

Quentin finishes wiring the DC/DC converter to the batteries.

The team placed a carpet cover over the batteries in the trunk to make the car look stock. The carpet is from Latemodel Resotation and fit great.

Chase shines the wheels for this weekend's competition.

Mr. Butler finishes up some of the main wiring left on the vehicle.
Notice the sweet miners headlight!

Sponsor Board Arrived

To thank all of our many sponsors, the team had a sponsor board made by Signs & Trophies of Madison to represent them this weekend at the EV Challenge. The board has two sides with multiple sponsors on each side. The sponsor board was graciously manufactured by Signs & Trophies of Madison, NC. We will display the board at the competition this weekend to thank and acknowledge all of our sponsors that have helped make this project possible.

Chase and Clint check out our new sponsor board.

Just a few of our many sponsors that have made this project what it is.

View our complete sponsor page at http://lab306.com/

5.0 Side Emblems and Trunk Emblems

To give our Mustang some extra flare, we installed brand new badges and emblems to the Mustang on both front quarter-panels in front of the doors, as well as a new Ford emblem and LX emblem on the trunk door. Over all, the install for the emblems were pretty easy, although we paid extra attention to detail, making sure both emblems were straight on both sides. All these emblems are available at our favorite supplier, latemodel restoration supply!

The old 5.0 Emblem on the right-side front quarter panel.

Clinton carefully removes the old emblem to make room for the new.

Clinton uses a heat gun to melt the adhesive holding the old emblem on to make things easier.

The old LX emblem being carefully pried from the trunk.

The old adhesive and rust that was underneath the old Ford emblem.

Clinton installs the 5.0 Emblems onto the left side of the Mustang.

One 5.0 emblem after being installed.

First Test Drive!!!

Just last night, some members of the team drove the vehicle for the first time as an electric vehicle! The Mustang drove smoothly and is very near completion. The team still has to finish all of the necessary wiring such as wiring all lights and turning signals as well as install a kill switch into the cab of the car to stop the flow of electricity in case of an emergency.

We are now in the process of putting finishing touches on the car, and we should be completely finished by this weekend's challenge.

Door Moldings, Weather Strip, and Side Mirrors

Our team recently completed the install of new door moldings, weatherstrip, and side mirrors provided by Late Model Restoration. The previous weather strip and moldings have become extremely worn, and were in need of being replaced. The side mirrors were also worn and in need of replacement. Late Model Restoration supplied moldings and weatherstrip for both doors, all windows, the trunk, and windshield. Late Model Restoration also supplied new side mirrors and a new rear-view mirror for our project.

Our Mustang's previous window molding (top) compared to the new molding (bottom) supplied by Late Model Restoration.

Clinton finishing up on installing new window moldings onto the passenger-side door.

The diver's-side door complete with new window moldings supplied by Late Model Restoration.

Chase works on installing the driver's-side side mirror.

New driver's side mirror after being installed.

Driver's side mirror installed.

The next big step in our project is installing the controller, DC/DC Converter, and auxiliary battery before the EV Challenge next week.

Trunk and Battery Racks Painted

The team decided to paint the sheet metal around the metal battery racks to make the trunk look sleeker and more professional since many people will be seeing the batteries and the inside of the trunk during exhibitions. The team removed the battery racks and removed the factory paint from the hole which the battery rack fits into. The team also painted the battery racks black to match the paint job inside of the trunk. Now the trunk and the racks inside of it have a fresh coast of paint and are looking sharp.

The trunk of our Mustang after the factory paint was removed.

A closer shot of the inside of the trunk before it was painted.

Hunter paints the inside of the trunk. That stuff doesn't come off either!

Quentin paints the other side of the trunk interior.

The finished product.

The inside of trunk after a fresh coat of paint.

Rear Seat Delete Install

One of the key challenges of the EV Challenge is to make sure your team's vehicle looks as stock as possible, basically to make the car look like nothing was changed on it. In order to meet this requirement, our team has removed the rear seat that was in our Mustang, but installed a rear-seat delete kit supplied by Late Model Restoration. The rear seat delete consists of three pieces of thin plywood covered with carpet to simulate the rear seats and provides some extra cargo space under the "seat". The install was pretty easy and went very well. The Mustang's interior should look great now going into the EV Challenge this weekend.

Clinton and Tyler installing the rear seat delete kit.

Clinton secures the lip piece of the rear-seat delete kit to the bench part.

The rear seat delete after being installed into the car.

The car is in the final stages of its conversion as our team races to finish before the competition. The next step includes rigging a kill switch onto the main batteries, installing new tires and wheels onto the Mustang, and completing the interior.