Pinch Me, it it real?

[motormitch]

At least it didn't 't start with "hey, hold my beer and watch this!"

 

[luke7734]

I feel this is going to end not so well for you... not only the fictitious tags.. reckless op.. failure to controll.. unsafe vehicle.. destruction of Govt property.. I'm just gonna go out on a limb and say.. you probably didn't have insurance yet either... enter cop with the huge night stick and large hands... and judge with an urge to lay down a f'n...

Sent from my SCH-I605 using Tapatalk

 

[Todd.Brock]

I'm hooked! Keep typing please.

 

[dreesemonkey]

Good story Mitch, glad to hear everyone was ok too. Keep 'em coming

 

[Oggy]

How have I never read this thread before??? Your stories are great, you articulate them well. If I were to tell one, it would start with "This one time, at *insert location*..." Definitely subscribing.

 

[Beefbuzz]

Need chapter II!!!!!!

 

[Coolabah]

Wow Mitch you have done so many things so well ! I have really enjoyed your thread , you have done what I am sure most of us wish we could !

Whats the next thing on your "to do list " ??


cheers,

Coolabah

 

[motormitch]

Thank you for the kind words. I have a really big project in the works that I have not started talking about yet because I'm going to attempt to raise funds for it on Indiegogo (crowd funding). Let's just say it involves a very unique restomod for 1968 Mustang Fastback that if successful is something I would offer to actually produce a limited number of for sale. When complete, I expect it will be one of the fastest, most powerful street legal mustangs ever produced. It is called a Zombie 222. Stay tuned and I will be posting details very soon. I'll bet it would be a real big hit "Down Under".

 

[motormitch]

Well, last night I moved the ball forward a few yards. Both front door panels have been done and I installed the rear ones and rear seat. I am starting to see a car again. Now all I have left are a couple of minor things like installing the whole dash area, painting the car, new exhaust, and re-installing everything else like bumpers, headlights, etc... I'm getting tired thinking of it....

Well more significant progress. We got the entire dash completely reinstalled and fully functional. Even got all the gauge lights working!! Also cleaned out the trunk and make sure there were no rust issues there. Here are a couple of pictures. She may get painted this weekend.

 

[motormitch]

Progress is starting to move along on the Zombie 222 project. I pulled the drive train from the car and was please to see everything looking good under the covers so to speak.

 

[motormitch]

Tonight is the night finally for painting the Riviera. I'll post as I go. Here are some pic of the car in the retractable booth and the hood and trunk lid standing waiting for base coat..

 

[motormitch]

Base coat is on and nice...

 

[motormitch]

Clear coating done finally. Long day....

Here some pics

 

[Jon69RagTop]

That really looks nice. I always enjoy your updates, thanks for taking the time.

 

[motormitch]

Well, I went and did it. That beautiful blue 68 Fastback is now the alpha version of the Zombie 222 aka Black Zombie. What an adventure I have been on over the last 3-4 weeks. Left my job, started a new business producing electric super cars from vintage American Muscle cars, and tackled car #1. Where to start? I was born a poor black child.... Wait, not me, that was the Jerk....

Anyway, for while now I have quietly been working on an usual resto-mod 1968 Fastback that I am now ready to talk openly about. I have formed a partnership (Blood Shed Motors) with a gentlemen named John Wayland who is a legend in the electric drag world and currently has the world's quickest electric street car. He built a 1972 Datsun 1200 that is documented doing 0-60 in 1.8 seconds. The car is the White Zombie. Just Google it and prepare to be amazed. After researching both John and his car, I reached out and shared my vision of producing a limited series of the most iconic American Muscle cars that were completely electric powered and significantly out performed the original specs, starting with the most iconic of all, the 67/68 Fastback. John was excited about the idea and we got started. I was able to attract several super talented people here in town to join up as well. We have a hell of team.

Over the last three weeks things have really moved quickly. John trailer-ed the White Zombie out to Austin from Portland and we studied his car, gave it a new paint job and started the conversion of a sweet looking completely rust free 68 Fastback I picked up in Houston. We installed twin 11" electric motors, gear vendors overdrive, new rear end and were able to secure the loan of the worlds most powerful EV battery pack ever produced.

It is being used by Big Daddy Don Garlits on Swamp Rat 37 to set a world record electric dragster 1/4 run just like he did back in the early 70s on gas. The pack is 1.5 Megawatts. Yes, I said MEGAWATTS! This Friday, I was able to get it to the track, completely untested and see how everything worked out. We had some hiccups, but still, all in all the testing was very successful and we are moving forward to production and hope to show the current one at SEMA later this year.

The shipping specs will be 750HP, but more importantly it will be at 1800 ft-lb torque. That's not a typo. At the track test, the battery pack we had would have put the car at over 1500HP so we set the controllers to 1/2 power. I plan to tear it down for the real paint and interior work and more testing and tuning through out the summer. Hemmings Motor News did a daily writeup on the car and business and there was a lot of "hating" thrown at us for daring to desecrate a Mustang with electric drive -http://blog.hemmings.com/index.php/2014/06/11/amped-up-ponies-electric-mustang-converters-promise-750hp-in-classic-package/

There was another write up in Jalonik -http://jalopnik.com/is-this-750-hp-electric-mustang-fastback-sacrilege-1590258114 and the response was much more favorable. I'm not sue what that says about the difference in readership, but who knows. If you want to bash at this idea feel free, but I'm hoping that folks who like building garages to be as bad as they can get them will find this interesting. The Zombie 222 name is a tribute to the original White Zombie and the 222 stands for 2 monster motors, 2 monster controllers and 2 damn fast brother

Back to the shop (named the Blood Shed before any of this started because everyone who works there bleeds there sooner or later, but seems prophetic now) but I'll check in to answer any questions and read any suggestions ya'll have. I have a simplistic web site that has pics and stuff. http://www.zombie222.com Make sure that you check out the picture of the engine bay (now called motors bay) and the video of the track burnout and slowmo of the wheelie off the line. We would have tried to get a track ticket in the low 10s or high 9s, but someone (me) left off the sway bar and we had to eye ball the toe on the front wheels since we just installed a rack and pinion steering. I don't feel too bad since we took it from 3 straight all-nighters directly to the track without a single road test.

Stay tuned for more....

 

[motormitch]

Here are some build pictures of the Zombie 222

Motors coupled together



Motors with Gear Vendor attached



New rear end from Street or Track. Love it!



Brakes from the same...

 

[Dugan]

Why are your coilovers mounted so low under the rear?

 

[motormitch]

Why are your coilovers mounted so low under the rear?

They aren't actually unusually low, but this picture without wheels and the rear hanging is misleading. It does look weird, but watch the rear perform in this test video from the first launch at the track. The slow motion wheelie at the end shows how great this rear setup performs. I had never even heard of Street or Track until I posted some questions in the Vintage Mustang Forum. They have been AWESOME to work with and by them I guess I mean Shawn the owner operator.

 

[Dugan]

They aren't actually unusually low, but this picture without wheels and the rear hanging is misleading. It does look weird, but watch the rear perform in this test video from the first launch at the track. The slow motion wheelie at the end shows how great this rear setup performs. I had never even heard of Street or Track until I posted some questions in the Vintage Mustang Forum. They have been AWESOME to work with and by them I guess I mean Shawn the owner operator.

danggg, id love to learn how to do an electric car. Being an electrical engineer its always amazed me how simple it looks and how amazing the results are.

 

[motormitch]

danggg, id love to learn how to do an electric car. Being an electrical engineer its always amazed me how simple it looks and how amazing the results are.

I plan to keep the journey documented on this thread or maybe just start a new one with that as the sole topic. It has been one of the most exciting projects I have ever done and I am still just getting started. If things work out, I'll get to try on all of the really cool cars.....

One thing is that it is very expensive and I mean very....

 

[motormitch]

Here are some more pics...

This is just 1/2 of the world's most powerful battery pack getting ready to be installed.



In go the motors



Wiring almost complete and twin controllers mounted like valve covers as a nod to the muscle car DNA....



Kids even love it.... Good thing the batteries aren't installed yet!

 

[Dugan]

Other than the batteries, what else runs expensive? The motors? Anything else? When you say expensive, about the 2k range?

 

[motormitch]

Other than the batteries, what else runs expensive? The motors? Anything else? When you say expensive, about the 2k range?

2K? I wish. I admit to being shocked how expensive this project has become.

The 2 motors are 8K together, the 2 Zilla controllers that can handle 2,000 AMPs are 13K together, the wiring is over 1K alone, then another 1K in contactors and other stuff. The batteries are going to run 35-40K for the tpe we need to provide both power and range. A rear end that can handle 1800 ft-lb of torque and handle on the street or race track is another 7-8K, gear vendors for an overdrive to get the kind of top speed we need to set a record at the Texas Mile is another 3K, then a lot of custom fab work for mounting, etc.. I still have another 7K to go in front end, brakes and steering. I can oly guess that the final paint job and interior will be 20-30K with me doing most of it myself. When it is all done, this car will have well over 100K in it without any labor since we are all doing the work ourselves. That is why when we sell them in production that are going to have to run around 200K plus since we can't keep doing all of the labor ourselves.

All that being said. This is much cooler and more powerful than any Shelby clone or Eleanor conversion I have ever seen and has a good shot of getting into the record books as the quickest and possibly fastest street mustang ever seen including the new GT500s. I drive a 2011 GT500 and can already tell you from the short amount of driving I have had on this car that it will destroy my GT500 on quickness and the top speed of going to come down to gearing (easy to solve) and aerodynamics (scary as hell).

All I can say is that my wife really really really loves me. If this new business doesn't work out, I'll be putting a bed at the Blood Shed.....

 

[Dugan]

2K? I wish. I admit to being shocked how expensive this project has become.

The 2 motors are 8K together, the 2 Zilla controllers that can handle 2,000 AMPs are 13K together, the wiring is over 1K alone, then another 1K in contactors and other stuff. The batteries are going to run 35-40K for the tpe we need to provide both power and range. A rear end that can handle 1800 ft-lb of torque and handle on the street or race track is another 7-8K, gear vendors for an overdrive to get the kind of top speed we need to set a record at the Texas Mile is another 3K, then a lot of custom fab work for mounting, etc.. I still have another 7K to go in front end, brakes and steering. I can oly guess that the final paint job and interior will be 20-30K with me doing most of it myself. When it is all done, this car will have well over 100K in it without any labor since we are all doing the work ourselves. That is why when we sell them in production that are going to have to run around 200K plus since we can't keep doing all of the labor ourselves.

All that being said. This is much cooler and more powerful than any Shelby clone or Eleanor conversion I have ever seen and has a good shot of getting into the record books as the quickest and possibly fastest street mustang ever seen including the new GT500s. I drive a 2011 GT500 and can already tell you from the short amount of driving I have had on this car that it will destroy my GT500 on quickness and the top speed of going to come down to gearing (easy to solve) and aerodynamics (scary as hell).

All I can say is that my wife really really really loves me. If this new business doesn't work out, I'll be putting a bed at the Blood Shed.....

 

[motormitch]

My face exactly!!! But you only live once and your best stories come from your worst decisions

 

[motormitch]

Imagine all the cool new stories I will have about my encounters with "the juice of the devil"

 

[roscoe2000]

A great undertaking, I would expect...once you hit the road, your phone won't stop ringing. You have an untapped market, with the muscle car look and electric power. Not to mention ...performance.

 

[Dugan]

And I thought becoming an engineering id hope to be able to afford stuff like that... I need to invent the next pet rock.

 

[motormitch]

Dude,

I invented the pet pebble. Smaller and focused at the child market. Parents just love cute toys. However, success comes at a price. I am dealing with a law suit from the marble companies, since they claim my pebbles are just lumpy marbles.... May justice prevail....

 

[Todd.Brock]

Awesome project! At least you can save money on the custom headers and exhaust

 

[motormitch]

Awesome project! At least you can save money on the custom headers and exhaust

Todd,

You are indeed an optimist!

 

[zekeymonkey]

Great build! I see your building is 4000 sqft. But, what are the dimensions of the building?

Also, you've reconfirmed my desire to buy an old forklift once I get a real garage.

 

[4AudiQ]

What a build?
Subscribed.

 

[motormitch]

Great build! I see your building is 4000 sqft. But, what are the dimensions of the building?

Also, you've reconfirmed my desire to buy an old forklift once I get a real garage.

Approx.. 55'x70' I choose 55' to fit in a full motor coach in case I got one at retirement and the 70 held three big doors.

The old forklift is the best tool I ever bought. I find myself even using it to take out the trash dressed as Batman of course.

 

[R26B]

Truly amazing stuff. You've inspired me to get off my Azz and do something. I'll be watching with great interest, hoping, knowing, that good things are just on the horizon for the Blood Shed. Keep up the outstanding work.

 

[egnorant]

Seeing this Mustang run is now a bucket list item!

Bruce

 

[dhubbard422]

Imagine all the cool new stories I will have about my encounters with "the juice of the devil"

I'm looking forward to reading them.

Best wishes on this new venture! This is quite cool. I noticed at least a couple of things from the video at the track:
1) it needs more TIRE...
2) it launches HARD even with too little tire!

Maybe someday I'll have to beg a visit to the BloodShed... I still need to see your "portable" paint booth and now I need to see Zombie222!

 

[Dugan]

Im waiting for the "bloodshed" to turn into the "electro-shock therapy shed" with this new venture. Will be waiting for the story mwahah

 

[motormitch]

I'm looking forward to reading them.

Best wishes on this new venture! This is quite cool. I noticed at least a couple of things from the video at the track:
1) it needs more TIRE...
2) it launches HARD even with too little tire!

Maybe someday I'll have to beg a visit to the BloodShed... I still need to see your "portable" paint booth and now I need to see Zombie222!

Any and all are welcome to the Blood Shed. You will have to do one actual hands on task to see if we get to add to the wall of blood

 

[motormitch]

Im waiting for the "bloodshed" to turn into the "electro-shock therapy shed" with this new venture. Will be waiting for the story mwahah

Ohhh.. I haven't finished all of the old ones yet..... But I will share that right after we hooked up the "Big Daddy" 1.5 Megawatt battery pack to the Zombie 222, I was reaching in to wrap some dust off of the controllers and motor mounts with a damp rag when the John (builder and owner of the White Zombie) said in a soft voice, "don't move, just freeze". Of course my first thought is, "where is the F-ing spider now?" But that wasn't the problem. It turns out that my hand was 1 CM from one of the main contactors which was hot with 400V at 4000amps. I think I pee-ed myself a little. I frozen so hard that they could have lifted me and carried me like a manikin. All I could hear in my head was Bill Murray's voice from Ghost Buster says. "OK, Important safety tip...."

Knowing that jugo de diablo lives in the Zombie 222 means that I will likely NEVER EVER wash that car......