Exclusive Specs On The SWIGZ.COM Pro Racing TTXGP Bike
Rider and Owner Chip Yates On the SWIGZ.com Pro Racing Superbike
With one week left until the electric race bikes take to Infineon to kick off the much anticipated 2010 TTXGP series, I got my hands on exclusive detailed spec of the SWIGZ Pro Racing electric superbike. What you see here is not the latest LiFePO4 delivery bike, though the beautify crafted battery racks loaded with 360 life-poe-fours will have the folks on Advrider.com dying to convert a GSXR 750 for dual sport duty.
The SWIGZ bike puts down 145 kW (194 HP) peak and 295 ft/lbs of torque courtesy of a 384 Volt LiFePO4 battery pack and liquid cooled permanent magnet DC motor. This bike is by far the most powerful on the grid. (what? Here’s a good electric lingo tutorial) The bike has 11.5 kWh (think gas tank size) of energy in its battery pack which is more energy storage than last year’s TTXGP bikes that ran the 38 mile Isle Of Man course. In addition, the SWIGZ bike has the benefits of energy recovery via a patent pending KERS system that will return energy to the batteries when Chip is on the brakes.
Check out the full specs and more pictures after the break.
SWIGZ.com Pro Racing TTXGP Bike Specifications
With the power this bike generates they are going to need the KERS unless Chip plans to go easy on the throttle. He won’t have to think too hard as the MoTeC ACL is programmed to decide how much power to put down so Chip can concentrate on picking the best lines and finish the race with just a little juice left. The SWIGZ.com Pro Racing team has the most powerful bike of all the 2010 TTXGP teams that have shown their cards. However, it is also the most technologically advanced (read complicated) setup.
In the picture above, taken six days ago, the batteries are not wired up and the motor is not attached to the Swift Engineering motor mount. No doubt the team would have liked more time to test the bike and work out bugs. My fingers are crossed that this bike makes it through the race without any technical problems. If anyone can pull it off, the SWIGZ.com brain trust can.
Buy your 2010 MotoJam tickets now, it’s gonna be a great show!
In: TTXGP · Tagged with: 2010 TTXGP Teams, cells, Chip Yates, controller, Electric Motorcycle Racing, KERS, LiFePO4, MoTeC, motor, Racing, specifications, specs, SWIGZ, SWIGZ.COM Pro Racing, TTXGP
on May 7, 2010 at 12:43 pm
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The cells are headway 38120s 10Ah, 120 in serial = 1 strange and 3 strange in parallel, so he has a 384V/30Ah battery, the cells are rated at 10C = 300Ampere
Power = Current * Voltage
300 Ampere * 384V = 115kW = 156BHP
but if you go to 100 Ampere for each cell, the voltage goes down to 2,6V for each cell, 120*2,6V = 312V * 300 Ampere = 93,6kW = 127BHP
the total weight of the whole pack is around 115kg!
recovering energy with this type of cells is senseless, the kers will not work, a kers with this cells will just heat the cells…
on May 7, 2010 at 12:50 pm
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Thanks for the technical breakdown and additional information Christian. Is the heat you mention a result of the cells inability absorb the energy generated from KERS as fast as it creates it?
on May 7, 2010 at 2:32 pm
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There are two types of reactions in the cell:
1) chemical to electrical (discharging)
2) electric to chemical (charging)
When you are discharing the cells with the maximum power the reaction goes from chemical to electrical with the maximum speed, on racetracks you close the throttle and a millisecond later you are going hard on the brakes, so the chemical reaction turns to charging, but this is impossible, because you have to stop it and wait a bit otherwise the voltage goes (shoots) to the maximum and the power will produce no charge, just a lot of heat.
I tested this in Calafat/Spain.
For road use kers (kinetic energy recovery system) is absolutley ok, but for track use it is absolutley senseless.
They never ever tested these before.
The next point is the location of the cells in the bike, behind the rider in this height is not very good for track use.
My cells are to high, but a lot lower then here.
My bike handles like a Honda Goldwing, how will this bike feel?
weight of the cells: 115kg
weight of the chassis: 90kg
motor: 25kg
controller: 12kg
total minimum: 242kg
thats nothing new…
let`s wait for the Indy performance
on May 7, 2010 at 3:12 pm
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IANAEEng but:
Wouldn’t it be possible to have a block of cells that is ready to collect the charge and divert the regen electricity to those cells rather than the cells being used to power the engine? Then juggle the use of power from these recharged cells when the you have an appropriate window of opportunity (i.e: for a boost as you run down a straight)?
The SWIGZ team’s specs mention a patent pending KERS system and a custom battery management system. Complex yes – but ultimately software will win these races as much as hardware or pilot.
on May 8, 2010 at 9:49 am
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The bike looks very heavy and not easy to handle.
I think with electric race bikes it’s very important to have high corner speed this can results in fast lap times.
It seems that a lot of electric race teams don’t think about this.
I builded a electric race bike; 165 kg 9.5KWh batteries power 50kWatt and it’s very fast on a race track.
on May 8, 2010 at 1:44 pm
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Yes the bike seems heavy but i think chip must designed it and then this should be a calculated move ….or otherwise this would be senseless…
on May 31, 2010 at 3:57 pm
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there was recently presented a PhD thesis on dynamic battery arrays with switching capablities (up to 64 levels of series/parallel)
on July 20, 2010 at 3:16 pm
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[...] On his website Chip also talks more about the electronics that control the electric race bike. I posted a while back about SWIGZ.com Pro Racing’s “Race Finishing Algorithm” that computes throttle usage trends, [...]