Northern Thunder Specs
We are purchased a 98’ GSXR to become the teams new bike. It will run at both 24 and 48 volts, it will have approximately two to six times the HP of Whispering Lightning. So we expect to go just a little bit faster this season. We will keep you up dated as the project progresses. Here are some pictures.

Here is the frame, it has been lowered, motor plate installed, and we are starting to fabricate the aluminum saddle bags. We plan on placing 8-12 of the batteries in the bags. This will give Heather some much needed traction off the line. As will the 5.5” Mickey Thompson slick that is installed. One of Whispering Lightning’s biggest problems was traction.
   Northern Thunder will be hitting the line with approx. 150ftlbs more torque at 24volts, and 2000ftlbs more at 48volts. So we are concerned about traction.

     At 5” Diameter and 12” long they are not the biggest things in the world. But if you look at the performance chart below we expect some big power from these little babies.
     We started with a tried and true motor design. We then had Barry White a local tool and die guy machine up some custom end caps for. it, so we could convert it from bushings to bearing mount. The high grade aluminum shaved some major weight from the original design, saving almost 16lbs. It is as strong orstronger than steel. Jeff Chatterson from Chatterson Machine special order the 5 1/2” bar stock on the cheap for us.
     You will notice a rather shiney finish to the motor. That is because Rick from HTC applied a patented ceramic coating to both the inside and outside of the barrels. We did this for a few reasons. One it just plain looks good. But more importantly it saved us trying to shim the fields, as the ceramic coating, when done properly like at HTC, is an even 4 thousands thick. By appying this to the inner barrel it reduces my field to armature clearance and gains us approx. 25% more power. Another reason is we wanted to try and keep from having the barrels heat soaking from the tremendous amount of heat we are going to generate. By tremendous, I mean we will be close to 50,000watts of just plain heat.
    

Here is the custom motor plate installed. It is 1/4 thick 5140 Almuinum. Very light weight but yet super strong.

Motors at 24volts                                            Motors at 48volts

We added a solid steel bar in place of the rear mono shock. This dropped the frame several inches, and wil help with power transfer. Makes for a rough ride though.