Yeah, not sure if anyone's still following this, but I do get asked about it a lot, so I'll keep updating this thread.
The BMWCCA car show (at this point, the car is mostly BMW if you go by $) got canceled due to rain, so I decided to do my distance testing and map my gears out (we've been upshifting too early, which is not good for the motor temps).
I got it ready to go, fueled up the generator, and set out:
The fan nicely draws the heat away from the driver, and if I remember my hearing protection, then it's really not a bad ride, aside from the obvious intrinsic horribleness of its existence:
The cockpit is nice and cozy:
For some reason, the GFCI receptacles on generators don't like to work with high-powered DC power supplies. I usually put regular receptacles in the generators, but I didn't feel like dragging it out of there and fixing it, and I needed a 12v DC source because it was raining and I was running the lights and windshield wipers, so I wrapped an old HP server power supply in duct tape and cut the ground prong off of its power cord, and that worked:
After I mapped out the gear ratios (we should never be in 4th), I headed out on the I440 beltline around Raleigh, which runs right by the shop. Each lap is about 26 miles. The speed limit is 60, so I mostly kept it between 60 and 65, although on one downhill section I did hit 74. For the first lap, I just ran it on batteries, and they barely registered a drop after 26 miles. I stopped at the shop and fired up the generator and started the charger, but it charged so quickly that it had charged the pack and shut down before I got it back on the highway (there's a really long light). Lots of people stared at it, probably because it looks so badass and I look so damn sexy driving it:
During lap 2, it started raining really hard and the vacuum from the open door pulled the water in to the car, soaking the charger and DC PS:
I really should have expected that; it's not the first time that I've looked right at the Bernoulli Effect as it runs up and kicks me in the Jimmy. I parked it and put a fan on the electronics to dry them out, and I built a shield to keep it from happening again:
I'll try this again later, but at the end of the day, I turned 66 miles, most of them at 60+ (the worst kind of miles for battery life), and the battery only dropped from 154v to 149v. The pack has an operating range of 156v to 136v, and should drop relatively linearly throughout that range, so this thing should easily go well over 100 miles on battery. Under throttle I was using a little over 100A on uphill sections and a little under 100A on downhill sections, so while my 9KW generator will not keep up with the battery drain at continuous cruising over 60 MPH, it should extend my range to well over 200 miles, maybe even 300, after which it will require several hours to recharge. With some off-throttle time, a few stops (driver changes), some of our slow-car hyper-miling/racing, and a big heaping helping of divine intervention (I can see no way in which Ahura Mazda could not be on our side), we may be able to get through a day of racing with it.
Everybody grab your brooms, it's shenanigans!