We started building the Zephyr in early 2013 with the purchase of our motorcycle frame. The Zephyr began life as a 2004 Suzuki GSX-R 600 which had a a fast and furious past as a gasoline powered racing bike with Calgary’s Motorcycle Roadracing Association (CMRA). We removed all the gasoline components and were left with a lightweight aluminum frame, complete with race quality suspension.

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Lovingly dubbed “The Mule” this motorcycle was Team Zeus’ humble beginnings. While far from a race-worthy bike, the aim here was to convert an existing gasoline motorcycle to electric using a budget of under $1000 and as little outside help as possible. We managed to successfully pull it off, producing a fully functional electric motorcycle and learning a wealth of knowledge about how they work.

In the second phase of the project, we are upgrading the very underpowered Mule with a much more powerful motor that we are building from scratch. Using a slightly modified blueprint from a detailed ebook, the “Axel Borg Motor” should theoritically allow the Mule to hit highway speeds.

As for future plans, the Mule will always remain as a project bike to tinker around on and for new generations of first years to learn on.

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After completing the mule, and after having come to the conclusion that we wanted to design our own motor for the coming race bike, we came across the Axel Borg Motor and decided to built it, in order to learn what building an electric motor is all about. The design is based on the work of an engineer named Axel Borg (how cool a name is that?) out of Sweden. We purchased a detailed ebook from his website and after some slight modifications, we set to work.

The initial design was an axial flux, AC, 3-phase, salient coil, permanent magnet motor that could be easily built from readily available materials, but still produce practical levels of performance. The original motor, primarily out of wood in a backyard shop, was powerful enough to be installed in a small motorcycle and hit 90km/h. Here are the initial promised specs, according to the book

Since we had access to a machine shop, we decided to use some more advanced materials, so we chose to go with aluminum for the rotors, due to lightweight, ease of machineability and its nonmagnetic nature, along with phenolic for for the stator. We also chose to go with higher grade N48 Neodymium magnets, rather than the suggested N45 magnets, since the difference in price was small. In addition to these being stronger materials than wood, we also no longer had to worry about warping and could hit much finer tolerances, allowing us to decrease the motor air-gaps, thus increasing our power density.

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This makeshift vehicle dubbed “The Chariot” was made to test the NovAtel equipment we received. It was used as a dummy to setup a Raspberry Pi and automate data collection when powered on. Eventually, we will have to retire The Chariot to mount the SPAN IGM A1 (an accelerometer that records speed and acceleration down to the nanosecond!) on The Zephyr, our electric race bike.

* estimates may be inaccurate

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