LIGHTFIGHTER V2.0
R I D E R E V I E W
P94
current) power the battery provides and turns it
into AC (alternating current) power for the motor,"
Wismann says. "All electric cars and motorcycles
these days run off permanent magnet AC motors,
so you've got to invert the DC to AC.
"That motor controller itself also has some intel-
ligence on it. We run a rudimentary traction con-
trol through the motor controller, but that motor
controller communicates back up to the MoTec.
That's how we get all the data logged, and I can
go back and look at data from the session, along
with the GPS, of course."
Playing With Steel
Wismann, Schless and primary rider Troy Siahaan
from Motorcycle.com are now onto version two of
the chassis, learning lessons in stiffness from when
the first machine saw track action 18 months ago.
"Troy raced version one with some pretty good
success," Wismann said. "We determined by the
end of the season we thought the chassis was a
little too stiff. In version two, we attempted to make
some improvements by reducing overall stiffness and
we think we've gone in the right direction. I've been
watching with a lot of interest the developments
that KTM has been able to make with their MotoGP
program and even their off-road bikes. They're doing
some really cool things with the
sections of steel on their steel
frames. So, I'd love to experi-
Mission control with
the MoTec dash. You
can't see it but the
rear brake is where
the clutch on a petrol
bike would be.
The Lightfighter
has a number
of different rear
linkages at its
disposal.
ment with that in the future, but so far, I'm pretty happy
with this frame. The other kind of cool thing about the
chassis is it comes up and over the battery, there's two
bolts per side that hold the battery into the frame."
Battery changes take about 10 minutes when using a
scissor lift, but the team has yet to construct a second
battery, meaning everything on this bike is a one-off.
The swingarm is off a current generation Yamaha
YZF-R1, chosen firstly because the geometry was
close to what Wismann wanted and because of its
handling characteristics and flexibility. There's no ab-
stract thinking for the offsets for the shock, nor does
it have strange routings for an exhaust—something
obviously not needed with the Lightfighter.
