EV muscle

The humble little Enfield EV has been down the gym and it ain’t so humble anymore. Yes, it’s still short, but now you’re looking at an electric muscle car in the making. Well, hopefully.

There’s a saying ‘Short man syndrome’ which, perhaps rudely, suggests some height challenged blokes make up for their stature with a bag of steroids. Or just the ‘I’ll take you all on’ attitude of a Jack Russell.

Whilst it might still have standard bodywork, this ‘lil Enfield could hopefully become a force to be reckoned with when we hit the drag strip. We shall see.

Last week I paid a visit to Webster Race Engineering to see how she was progressing, but more specifically to get measured up for a race harness. As I’m trying my damn best to keep the main car as original as possible, we’re intending to keep the original black vinyl low-back bucket seats.The trouble is they are mounted quite high in the cabin, because originally there was space beneath both seats for some of the electric control units. As the controller I’ll be using is more modern, it is smaller, and so I’ll probably be mounting it under the bonnet or dash area.The latter has a huge slab of space under it doing largely nothing! I’ll talk more about the seats in a future blog, as my brother Greg at is currently trying to half the thickness of padding in them, to make them more suitable. They should look original, but will mean you don’t hit your head on the roof with a helmet on.

MOTORING AHEAD

As mentioned in a previous blog, the Flux Cap is running a twin motor set-up, where one motor runs into the other, with a direct drive propshaft out the most rearward one.

With the original chassis carefully modified to accept the bigger motors, it was time for Webster Race Engineering to fabricate a framework to carry the motors and be mounted/removed from the car as one.

The motors weigh 60kg each, so the twin set-up tips the scales at 120kg (excluding the metal cradle). Who said electric muscle was light? That’s still light compared to a combustion engine though.

You can see from the pics what the motor rack looks like on and off the Enfield. There has been a subtle extension of the trans tunnel too, but with carpet over it you’ll never know.

REAR RUBBER

You can see from the pics that the rear axle and four-link suspension is all mounted but still bare steel. This is called a dummy build, as it will shortly come off to be powdercoated.Because of the tiny space under there, the (Avo) shocks are mounted in front rather than behind the axle. The wheelie bars connect from underneath the axle tubes and can be unbolted for trips to Waitrose.The 14x7J Wolfrace slot mags are now well tucked under the standard back arches. They are wearing the best 14-inch tyre we could source for the purpose: Nitto Extreme NT555R drag radials in 205/55/14s. These are street legal treads for weekend drag racing guys, basically. I’ve heard good reports. We shall see.

 

The front tyres I’ve yet to source, so if anyone has any performance orientated 12-inchers to recommend I’m all ears.

ANCHORS

 

The Ford 9-inch rear axle has got matching drum brakes fitted, which only just clear the slot mag 14s! As for the front end, I’ve binned the original Mini drums and have some tasty Tarox calipers/discs on order from Italy.

There’s not really any option to put a servo on the master cylinder, because there’s no engine to produce vacuum assistance.

Next up? Finishing the brakes. Need to fit line-lock on the front anchors for burnouts. Very important indeed.

Search

Recent Posts