[upbeat rock music]
- [Narrator] What's up Monster fans?
- Who "Monster Garage."
- [Speaker] No, this is your mom.
- [Narrator] To this week's build team
to defeat the mighty Zeus.
- It's like sh**ting ducks in a barrel.
- [Narrator] Or will a truckload of tool batteries
weigh them down?
- [Jesse] You're not gonna commit suicide, are you?
- [Narrator] Don't wig out, just hold on tight.
[motorcycle crashing down]
And prepare to be shocked
- Yikes!
- [Narrator] By this electrifying episode
of "Monster Garage."
[shock flashing]
- [Narrator] Join us now as Jesse and his g*ng
of Maverick Mechanics rip, grind, and burn,
transforming ordinary street vehicles
into monster machines in the Monster Garage.
[upbeat rock music]
♪ Monster monster garage
♪ Monster monster garage
♪ Monster monster garage
♪ Monster monster garage
♪ Monster garage
- [Narrator] This week's challenge,
transform our rusted out '62 Chevy Bel Air
into an electric speed demon, with the help
of some very high powered tool batteries.
The rules, when built, the vehicle must appear to be stock.
The team has only 5,000 bucks for parts.
Jesse and the crew have seven days and nights.
On the first day they design, on the next five they build,
and on the seventh day, they race.
If successful, the team walks away
with a $4,000 set of Mac's hottest tools,
and they'll each get a 28-volt lithium ion combo kit
from Milwaukee Electric Tools, and the clock starts now.
Jesse shows no respect for the elderly,
as he prepares this old timer For a makeover
of the monster kind.
This week, he's building a beast the world has never seen,
an electric car powered by handheld tool batteries.
After a stressful morning of pylon punishment,
Jesse calms himself with a Tesla facial treatment.
- Our cone.
- [Videographer] We'll send the bill, right?
- [Narrator] The design team surges forth.
Jon Zick, a battery expert from Milwaukee Tools
who helped to develop the V-28.
From Youngstown, Ohio, parade float-maker,
and electric dragster expert, Shawn Lawless.
And Kimberly Wu, a transportation design student
at the art center from Pasadena, California.
- Jon Zick.
- You're from Milwaukee.
- I'm from Milwaukee.
- Lucky guess.
- Shawn Lawless, nice to meet you.
- What's up man?
Hi. Hi, Kim.
- Awesome.
I think cars should be cool,
no matter what they're powered by and oh yeah,
they just happen to be electric.
I mean all of 'em look, you know,
you have to live in a house made of cans,
and wear like hemp clothes to drive 'em.
[giggling]
You know, I want something cool,
and it just happens, we just never have to get gas again,
and it's still a cool classic car.
Couple different things,
I think we need to make it haul a*s.
And I think we need to,
instead of just using big deep-cycle car batteries,
you know, we should like a golf cart.
I mean I think that's too easy.
I think we need to use tool batteries,
an added extra degree of difficulty.
It'd be kind of cool to pop the trunk,
and see all these tool batteries,
because I think people would understand it more,
instead of looking at a golf cart-looking trunk.
- So we're probably looking at about
a little over 400 batteries.
- Awesome.
- Or something like that, this size.
- That's gonna take forever to let each of 'em charge up.
What we'll do is we'll prefab some racks and measure,
and see how many we can get lined up, you know?
- Yeah, I'm thinking if we run a busbar
positive negative, through the middle of these,
and put one on each side.
And then if we do like, I don't know,
if we need 15 or or 30 in parallel
and then we'll just series how many that we need.
Problem we have is we've got smart battery, smart charger.
So this is, you know, the first-
- Stupid driver.
[both giggling]
It balances it out.
How about the engine that's in it?
What do we got in it to work with?
- Six cylinder - And get the six out?
- If we get it outta there and get the radiator outta there,
we should be able to fit a couple motors in there.
- Let's do two motors.
I mean, let's look at it and measure it first.
See if we can get 'em side by side
with some kind of drive system.
What you thinking about like a belt driver or a gear driver?
- I think we can get 'em in tandem, direct couple.
I think we got enough length if we pull the radiator out.
But maybe we wanna take a preliminary look,
and see if we got the length without altering the exterior.
- Then make them with the shaft
that goes all the way through and you-
- Right, we'll be over 400 volts going into each controller.
We'll put two of these controllers,
one on each side of the motor,
and we plug our programmer in right here.
We'll set you up however you want it.
You know, if you say, "Hey, I got too much wheel spin.
Back it off to start."
We can do that.
You know, "Hey, I want more."
- I don't think I'm gonna be saying that ever.
- Hey, it's going too fast, slow it down.
- I know where we can get a deal on batteries.
[Jon giggling]
I think that's it, just make an electric car.
- Yeah, we could put- - It doesn't sound too wild
when you say that, but if we put 500 horsepower in it,
it'll be cool.
This is the first car
I won't be able to make cool exhaust for.
[Jon laughing]
- [Narrator] Making this Tin Lizzy electric,
will require a complete overhaul.
First, they'll remove all things fuel-based,
the gas tank, exhaust system and motor.
Then they'll install two 12-inch DC motors for an engine.
At the backend, they'll build a custom battery rack,
and drop in 420 V-28 lithium ion tool batteries for power.
Then they'll get it ready to race
by adding a two-speed power glide transmission,
and a custom drive shaft.
They'll add a stronger rear end, and get some slick wheels
before smokin' the tires at that quarter mile race.
[upbeat rock music]
[car engine revving]
[robotic beeping]
Day two, this week's team arrives at the garage
energized for the challenge ahead.
[tools sizzling]
From Campbell, California muscle car expert
and owner of Magnum Force Race Car Fabrication,
Ron Jenkins.
[tools sizzling]
Rich Madman Rudman hails from Kingston, Washington,
where he owns and operates a battery car charging company,
Manzanita Micro.
[tools sizzling]
From Whittier, California, Danny Delamater
owns a custom toolbox company, Delson Products.
[tools sizzling]
And staying on for the build, Shawn Lawless, and Jon Zick.
[upbeat rock music]
[door electrically sizzling]
- How you doing man, Jesse.
- Rich.
- Danny Delamater.
- What's up man?
- Hi, Jesse.
- Back again. - Hey.
- All right, so you guys heard most of the design stuff.
Just gonna make a cool 500 horsepower electric car,
nothing to it.
The motor and stuff will definitely have to come out.
We'll probably pull the trans out,
and see if we can get a rebuilt one maybe
from our car or something.
Exchange it, get a good
kind of drag race power glide for it.
For the rear suspension, you know,
we should probably, put some different gears,
and maybe just upgrade the springs and stuff like that.
I mean if it's 500 horsepower,
and this thing would break everything,
if you just put it in without upgrading it.
So, and the most, I think labor after that
is installing the motors,
and then trying to fit 400 batteries.
- 420 batteries. [laughing]
- Yeah, so when you get this car for Christmas,
the box is gonna say- - Batteries not included.
- [laughing] Yeah, must have 400 quadruple A batteries.
- [Narrator] This week's build
begins in true monster fashion with a mouthful of fuel.
- Our new fuel.
- Out with the old in with the new,
- Taking the gas tank out, for the last time.
- [Narrator] To prepare the Bel Air for its transformation,
the team tears out all parts
related to the old internal combustion engine.
- Hold on.
- Try and get as much weight as possible out of this thing.
[power tool riveting]
[rock music]
- This thing's a rusty nightmare.
- Yeah, isn't it?
- Watch your eyes. - Come on, there you go.
- Batteries are here guys, at least a few.
So right now I'm just kind of laying out one bank.
This would actually be one bank of of batteries,
and then we'll probably have to do,
I think about 14 of these.
- I'll tell you what, yeah we can get a tape.
We're close to the six foot right there.
- Should I lay down on it?
- Yeah, lay down, lay down on it.
- I'm five nine.
- Alright.
- Five 10.
- We got it, we got six foot, that's what we want.
- So height's not gonna be an issue 'cause we got, I mean-
- Height's not an issue if we go 11.
- We got 11 there.
- But if we can get 22, we can double stack.
- Can we go up another bank, if we want 11?
- Yes we can go 11 times two.
- Lots of batteries.
- What we're putting, [chuckling] yeah.
But also being able to snap the battery into the car.
Each time the car comes back to be recharged,
all 420 of these have to go on a charger.
So we have to- - We have to able to remove
'em all.
- Not only do we have to be able to plug 'em all in,
we can't just plug 'em in and stuff 'em together,
'cause we can't get 'em out.
So we have to be able to plug 'em in
and remove them in a relatively short amount of time.
- [Narrator] To make space for the incoming batteries,
Danny tears out the floor pan.
[soldering burning and flashing]
- I am just kinda givin' them some room,
and then giving 'em some ideas
of what kind of space they're gonna have,
and once they get some space, they'll be able to lay it out.
They're probably gonna have to change the design again,
but they're probably gonna have to lay it out.
I think they're gonna have a lot of room,
but they got a lot of batteries.
- Round two, what did I do with that engine?
Okay, we got the batteries in, you got the engine out.
- We're gonna run outta jack guys.
- Just jack that thing all the way up, until it stops.
Forward, forward, forward, clear.
You gonna lose it.
- Tail shift.
- [Narrator] Only the mechanical
could make this kind of mess.
The old straight six engine bleeds tr*nny fluid
all over the floor.
- Done.
- All right.
- Stop the clock, stop the clock.
- You guys are engineless, get on the batteries, man.
- [Jesse] You're not gonna commit suicide are you?
- Why?
- [Jesse] 'Cause Seattle's
like the suicide capital of the earth.
- Only in the winter when it's gray.
But I have this safety clause.
When it's gray in the town, it's snow up top,
so therefore I get to go skiing.
So the worse it is downtown,
the better it is up in the hills.
- Well let me know if you get depressed
or anything during the build.
We'll bring that m*dget out here to cheer you up.
- [Narrator] Near the end of day two,
the team gets a special delivery,
a pair of electric motors, the heart of the power plant.
These silent runners will turn electric energy
into mechanical energy.
- That's a lot of motor.
- These are about 230 pounds apiece,
and the fastest in the business
has one of these things at 110 pounds.
So you can see, we can basically cut our weight in half
and have the same motors.
- You like to talk about electric motors a lot, huh?
- I live and breathe 'em, man.
I got motors like this hanging off motor stands in my shop.
- What kind of car do you drive every day?
- A '78 Ford Fiesta.
It's about a $50 car with about $8,000 hard drive in it.
I can sign my name with the front tires,
at will in three gears
- You have an electric Ford Fiesta?
- Yeah.
- [Narrator] Rich Rudman is a self-proclaimed
amp head geek who is dedicated to the environment and speed.
- The majority of the electric vehicle people
are into environmental action and wish to drive
without burning any fuel.
And there's a small cadre of us,
that says we can have our high performance and our craziness
and still be zero emission,
except our tires keep catching on fire.
My street electric car is a '78 Ford Fiesta
with eight-inch motor and 1200 amp Raptor controller.
And I've got three or four Burn-off awards.
- Just goes to show man, just when we think this show
has turned every stone in the gearhead industry,
and along comes the dude with the Ford Fiesta Electric car.
[chuckling] I called, and like yes, they called.
Huh, Monster Garage.
- [Mom On Phone] No, this is your mom, close the back door.
Turn your music down.
- Okay mom. [laughing]
Where do you find motors like this?
- These are general electric, they're old,
industrial DC motors that might have been used
probably not in a fork truck,
but probably in a mill or some steel fabricating
or steel manufacturing processing plant,
rolling mills, something like that.
Maybe a old crane motors or something.
But that was what they were designed for originally,
to run at a hundred volts each.
So now we're gonna run 'em at about 350 volts each.
- We're gonna spin this thing up.
- How many volts we put into it?
- 12.
- Yeah, oh cool.
- Don't singe your hair.
- I will.
- [Man In Distance] Both of 'em.
[battery cables smacking to spark]
- [Narrator] The spinning motor
is a sign of good things to come.
By the end of day two, the 44-year-old Chevy
is stripped down and left for dead.
And only an effective build team,
using the powers of electricity can resurrect it
as a battery-powered beast.
"Monster Garage" factoid.
Electric vehicles ran as early as the 1830's.
They were popular because they were smooth, quiet,
and easy to drive.
They were dubbed ladies' cars,
because you didn't have to have muscles
to hand crank start them.
♪ Monster monster garage
[thunder clapping]
Day three, this crew has removed the mechanical
to make room for the electrical,
and today they'll see if it all fits.
A box of battery chargers rolls in to wake up the builders,
and Rich's task is clear, to charge hundreds of batteries
without blowing a fuse.
- Craziest way imaginable charging an electric car,
but it'll work.
- Right now here, we got 420 batteries that we're gonna use.
We got about half as many chargers,
so about 210 battery chargers.
They charge in an hour.
So basically, we can get a a full bank of charge
in two hours.
- Jon Zick's championed lithium technology
with the Milwaukee Heavy Duty Boombox.
But does he foresee
a lithium-powered electric car industry anytime soon?
- I think it's a long ways off yet.
There's a lot of obstacles to overcome.
You know, you just can't make enough batteries
to support the industry for one thing.
So the true full-blown electric car
will definitely take a long time to develop,
probably not within our lifetime.
- [Narrator] Shawn and Ron have a tough time
cramming the dual electric motors
into this pint-sized space.
- Here's where we have a clearance problem.
We can beat that back a little bit,
or if we can cut that plate off.
[hammer pounding on car]
- [Ron] Right on the corner,
it's the strongest part on the firewall.
- Cut the plate.
- [Narrator] To fit the oversized motors
into the snug front end,
Shawn and Ron use every tool at their disposal.
[heavy rock music]
[tool drilling and humming]
- There we go, okay, now we're getting closer to home.
- [Ron] It gave us a whole bunch of clearance,
so we can move it around wherever we need it now.
It moves all over the place now.
- To me, that that's about where it's gonna have to be.
- We're cutting the framework
for dropping these batteries in,
and I'm just cutting 45 in the end,
to make my welding a lot easier.
[motor running]
I'll give 'em as much room,
and let them figure out where the battery's gonna go
- [Narrator] To make this heavy car go fast,
the team needs to arrange the batteries
to allow for the most voltage possible.
Danny likes them tightly packed.
- Tight's nice, but we gotta be able to service this thing
in a freaking hurry.
- [Narrator] Jon likes them stacked in a row.
- 30 in a row.
- We're gonna have to make an unmake this thing,
Otherwise all other bars are gonna be in the way.
If you go from the top down,
all this arrangement's in the way.
You take the first one off, easy.
Now you gotta put your hand through these busbars
that are still hot.
So the pucker factor goes up
as the battery rack goes together.
[Rich laughing]
- [Narrator] Although he seems like a stickler for safety,
Rich has reason to worry.
When all the batteries are wired together,
there'll be over 300 volts of electricity
flowing in the back end.
People have been k*lled by shocks of just 50 volts.
Jon turns out his best idea yet.
- Now with this idea, you can get in,
remove one layer of batteries,
and then you can get in
and remove the next layer of batteries.
And you never have to remove these busbars.
- But the point is, can you reach down
through four stacks of batteries and get the bottom battery?
- This would have to come up and over.
- Frankly, I do not wanna stick my hand down across busbars.
[battery electricity shocking]
Yikes!
You know what,
that's why we don't wanna mess around with busbars.
- Shawn's got the solution to keep safety first.
Breaking the voltage between layers.
- Why can't we tie every layer in series?
- Yeah, that's what he saying.
- Alright, let's break the series leads between the layers.
All the layers are separate now.
Now you can reach in and grab these bars.
It can't do anything, it's dead.
- I still would use a damned glove.
- I like breaking the voltage.
You're a third of the voltage, each pack.
- [Narrator] To reduce the danger of electrical shock
when loading and unloading batteries,
the team will add voltage breaks between each layer.
Once all the batteries are removed from a layer,
the layer's busbars will become safe to touch,
and won't shock any builders.
- Don't want anybody getting k*lled.
I mean there's enough voltage and current here
to just knock you dead.
- [Narrator] With these words of encouragement,
the team calls it a day before anyone gets hurt.
They took a big bite out of the conversion today
by charging the V-28, installing the motors,
and figuring out the battery rack system.
But they've still got a long way to go
before they juice this beast.
Day four, in need of a recharge, the team takes a field trip
to check out the competition and learn from a pro.
They'll get schooled by Tom Gage,
a master EV expert from AC Propulsion.
- It's a tZero, it's an electric car, built in 1997,
It's got 6,800 little batteries in it,
pulls 165 kilowatts, zero to 60 in 3.6 seconds.
Can charge up in three hours, plus 300 miles on a charge.
- [Narrator] Being an EcoGeek, it's no surprise
that Rich takes the first test drive.
[car tires squealing]
[car racing by]
- Wait, wait, wait.
[brakes squeal to a stop]
- [laughing] That's fun, that's a slot car without a slot.
- [Tom] They're two-amp power cells and we got 68 of 'em,
so that's 136.
- Whooo, fast bottom dude.
- [Tom] Brand new car.
- Our car's gonna whoop that thing's a*s, dude.
Hey that thing's weak, and it's yellow.
That makes it even twice as slow.
- He's got 150 kilowatts, we have 600.
- Okay good, so he's gonna lose is what you're saying.
- We've got a lot of weight.
- [Narrator] A rejuvenated team slides back into the garage
and is hit with the realities
of tool battery propelled cars.
- We have a living room full of batteries
that have to go in a Bel Air trunk, basically.
- The copper artwork will begin today,
and it's not gonna be easy, and I hope we don't screw up.
'cause the potential there is pretty good.
A lot of little things gotta go together,
and we gotta do it times 56.
- [Narrator] Midway through the build,
and these fellas seem to be getting
a little too close for comfort.
While the rest of the crew gets to work,
Rich prays to the battery gods for help
with the monstrous amount of work to be done.
- Alright guys, we got all the connectors now.
This is what we need to do today.
[connectors crackling, spilling out]
- A good chunk of the rest of the build
is gonna be involved in building these.
This is gonna be where the effort goes.
That stuff's kind of a different thing than this.
This is like doing brain surgery.
That's like doing construction work, and that's artwork.
- [Narrator] To create a single busbar,
two copper bars are attached by 16 connector blocks.
Then positive and negative terminal wires
are fed into each connector block, providing power.
Plastic supports are added
to secure the blocks and wires to the busbar.
Finally, eight batteries are plugged into each side
for a total of 16 batteries, juicing every bar.
- Our big risk here is to somehow have these bars,
do that, because that is an expl*si*n.
Leave the building expl*si*n, call 9 1 1.
So this has gotta be right, it's gotta be together right.
And it's gotta be bulletproof.
Once we start lighting these things up,
we treat these things as a couple sticks of dynamite.
[flash pounding]
- This transmission was donated by Lawless Industries.
It was in a electric dragster that we had built.
So what we're gonna do
is we're gonna ship this transmission out tomorrow.
Jesse's got a company lined up
that's gonna do a rebuild on it.
Second gear's a little weak on it.
- We need more chargers in here.
What do you want me to do, I can help.
- This is kind of mind-numbing, I'll show you.
You just gotta do these
until that pile goes away behind ya'.
Here I'll show you the trick.
- It's like Bombay factory worker work.
- Ah, exactly.
- So you ready to commit suicide yet?
- This will do it for ya'.
- I think it's guys like him
that are giving battery power a bad name,
and his wacky antics.
- They all know me as Madman.
Now you know why, now you know why.
- 'Cause you like fast cars and fast women.
- Well actually I gotta wife. - That's what your friends-
- But I like fast cars. - That's why your friends
call you the cruiser.
I can't be around that guy too much. [laughing]
It's like sh**ting ducks in a barrel.
- [Narrator] Jesse adds some metal to the mix
with a high performance rear-end axle package from Currie,
including a rear drum brake kit,
control arms and housing brackets.
- I think if you're gonna use the stock mounts,
then get rid of the springs and shocks,
and run coilovers and run that top link.
- Yeah, run the top link, we could box in the lower bars,
and run the coilovers off the backend.
- I think that'll be enough for 500 horsepower.
- Yeah, gonna weld the shock mounts on.
- [Narrator] Being a true blue gearhead,
Ron Jenkins has owned and wrenched
over 60 Mopars in his life.
- I think I've got absolutely no experience
when it comes to electric cars,
and I'm not afraid to admit that.
I mean, I'd much rather be dealin'
with a 528-inch blown nitrous injected Hemi.
But you know, you can only have so much. [laughing]
[weld sparking]
[heavy rock music]
Yank it, all right, how about that?
- [Narrator] They've got to chisel away
through layers of rust to disengage the old rear end.
[weld squealing]
- It's ready to come out, we just need to pop this bolt out.
- Okay, come on.
Okay, how about right there?
- That's a good spot.
- [Narrator] It's full speed ahead for Rich and Jon,
as they focus on building the intricate busbars.
- Made number one of our bars.
Now we're just stuffing terminals.
Tomorrow will be a lot, we'll be all day of monkey work.
Probably the rest of the build for me,
will be monkey work now, repetition.
- [Narrator] Danny welds the dual motors
onto the custom brackets and the frame.
[rock music]
- Where we're at, the motors are in,
brackets, everything's welded up.
The big question is,
can we get all these batteries put together in time?
- [Jon] I heard that.
- So we got some good things comin'
and we got some questions.
- [Narrator] Maybe tomorrow,
the team will be ready to shock rock
and start banging out the battery racks.
But at the end of day four, this crew ain't got jack,
in terms of raw power.
On October 21st, 1879,
one of Thomas Edison's first light bulbs
burned for 40 hours.
On October 23rd, the first light bulb joke was told.
How many inventors does it take to screw in a light bulb?
One, but first he needs a patent.
[sign bubbling]
♪ Monster monster garage
It's day five, and the team is electrifried.
They'll need to channel all their energy
to keep this job on track.
- Yes, [laughing] and we're ready to get going.
We wanna work today.
- [Narrator] To get the drilling done on time,
Danny calls in a favor from a buddy.
- Physically impossible to drill 10 holes
in 54 of these bars in the timeframe
that we have to complete this.
So they've stepped up,
and are drilling all those holes on automated machines.
- [Narrator] Shawn's on battery box duty today.
- We're gonna build just a rectangular box
that's gonna retain the battery racks,
and we're gonna put it all together and see how it looks.
- [Narrator] Four busbars
will be linked together in each box.
Then seven boxes will be wired together,
one layer at a time, and stacks two across,
and three and a half high for a total of 392 volts.
- The reason we used wood for our box,
is we had to have a non-conductive surface
that could contain the busbars, and yet be stackable.
Plastic was cost prohibitive and time prohibitive
to get what we wanted.
So we just used good old two by sixes,
- [Narrator] Shawn and Jon
muscled the busbars into the wooden frames.
- Use the adjusting tool.
[board pounding]
- Stop, alright, whoa, whoa, whoa, not too far.
There you go.
- Is it over?
- Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. - Okay.
[mellow music]
- Plus 85, what's gonna happen
is all these trays will go in empty, like this.
We'll set the tray in,
and we're gonna load all the batteries.
Then we'll move to the next tray, and set it in.
So the trays aren't that heavy,
can be, you know, put in the car, they're only 85 pounds.
- [Narrator] Back in Ohio,
Shawn's got his own electric ride,
the Orange Juice Dragster.
But the one he built for his mom, wooo.
- I built her a little Nash Metropolitan.
We call it the ElectroPolitan.
She went to the drag strip with me this summer,
and her first run ever in the car, she broke a record.
So my mother's a Nedra record holder,
but I'm not. [laughing]
- [Narrator] The boxes look pretty,
but will they carry current?
- Ah, that's the bar.
- 23.8 open.
- 23 8?
- That's right.
- Jon, it's a little low, isn't it, man?
- Yeah, it's running a little low.
- You think the wood's sucking some down?
- Must be.
- We are having a, it's drifting.
Nothing, no gain, 52.5.
Something's not right.
Yeah, I smell burning wood too.
- Yeah, I do too.
- We got a problem.
- 52.6.
- Yep, that's two batteries.
- It's gotta be the wood.
I think we got too much resistance.
- Where do we have smoke?
- The wood's too wet.
Okay, so we gotta get some dry wood, that's all.
- [Narrator] Shawn called it.
Wet wood was sucking the juice out of the busbars.
- I didn't even check the wood when it came in two days ago.
I didn't check it, so I went and picked it up this morning.
I thought how heavy it, and it's the moisture
and it's conducting electricity between the two busbars.
So it's like a resistor in itself.
- [Narrator] While he waits for the dry wood,
Shawn handles the k*ll switch,
but he's got his own name for it.
- What we got here
is the proverbial first class oh [slashing] lever.
And when all else fails, that kills the whole system.
If there's any chance of anything failing
or motor controllers sticking,
or you know, anything catastrophic
where the power is on full and full battery,
current and voltage is going to the motors.
All you have to do, it's just a quick slap of that.
That pops that out, everything's dead, completely.
You know, the shifter's probably not as important as this.
- [Narrator] Madman's also concerned
about the dangers of raw power
as he hooks up the controllers.
- This stuff is no joke.
Each one of these things is about 500,000 watts.
You hook it up wrong, somebody's gonna get hurt.
I really don't wanna hurt a Hollywood personality.
Somebody could gimme a hand with this thing, ah.
[hands clapping]
[sheet metal rushing loudly]
- [Narrator] The motor controllers
regulate the power from the batteries to the motor.
Madman connects the main artery of the power plant
by wiring the motors at the front end
to the batteries at the back end.
Danny and Ron tackle the rear end install.
- Whoops, you got it?
- Like that.
- Like that, yeah.
- Give it a shove forward.
Tap it in with a hammer now.
[hammer tapping]
- Job well done.
- [Narrator] Rod welds the rear axle to the chassis.
[weld flashing]
Jesse arrives with four hot new customized wheels
from Budnick, there are two 18s for the front
and two 22s for the rear,
as Jesse wants to keep a low profile on this car.
- Let's get it as low as we can.
- Yeah, I don't wanna get so low
that the drive shaft's an issue though. [chuckling]
We might have to do a little- - A little persuading.
- For the front springs.
- A little liquid persuading,
a little Long Beach Lowering Kit. [laughing]
- [Narrator] The heat softens the springs,
and the weight of the car compresses them
so that when they cool there's a lower ride.
Jesse's got a line on a transmission man.
He heads out to get a complete overhaul
on this troubled tr*nny, in a hurry.
[truck tires squealing out]
Danny puts the finishing touches on his framework.
- We'll make it fit.
[rock music]
[tool whirring]
- Instant tire clearance.
- [Narrator] The framework's as big as it's gonna get
without altering the car's body,
but it may not be big enough for all the batteries.
- You got it.
- It's full.
- I mean, full is good.
- It's too full.
Don't forget it has come all the way up to here
and it can't hit here.
It's not just this, it's this tall.
If we try and stuff 420 behind that axle,
this is gonna be down here.
And you're gonna look from the sides of the fender,
and you're gonna see this nice fender,
and you're gonna see this square box
stickin' out underneath it.
- Go three layers.
- Three layers. - Right here?
- Two layers and option for three, if we need more speed.
- [Narrator] There's too much junk in the Bel Air's trunk
to keep the monster nice and stock.
They'll remove the top row of batteries
for our reduced total of 384 batteries
laid out in three layers.
- Well that was meant to be.
- That's beautiful.
You gonna put a floor pan in that?
- Yeah, oh yeah.
- I like it, see you'll never know looking from the back
that the trunk's full of batteries.
- We're just gonna do a, and block it in.
- Perfect, in here?
- Yeah, is your bunk bed dipped
in that little bus a little over here.
- [Ron] Of course.
- Whip out the zzz, on the zzz,
while those guys are all bbb.
- [Narrator] Although Danny Delamater
knows how to have a good time,
he's been taking care of business since he was 16.
He built his company, Delson Products from the ground up.
- We manufacture toolboxes for a lot of race teams.
Basically we supplied pit carts and, and workbenches,
and workstations for all those people.
[rock music]
[weld flashing and whirring]
- How you doing MadMan?
- Getting mad.
- [Shawn] We're getting mad?
- Yes, I'm getting mad.
- [Narrator] An oracle appears at the garage
with a message of doom.
[tympani drum notes]
- Ahhh, you're going to fail.
You're going fail.
- If he's a god, and I ground him, he's, zap, you're dead.
[Oracle groaning]
- [Narrator] Madman puts this scrawny brute in his place,
and defends the team's good name.
- Got dry wood, California Redwood, boys.
- We gotta try that right away then.
- The objective tonight is to get a revised battery box
done out of the dry wood
instead of the soaking wet wood we had earlier.
And hopefully the voltage loss
through the wood will would be a lot less.
- [Narrator] Now that he's got the right stuff,
Shawn will build a prototype.
- Hold that on, hold that one, hold that one.
[power drill motor buzzing]
[light rock music]
[hammers pounding]
So now we got some nice dry wood.
We left the connection a little bit looser.
I think, let's go for three, what do you think?
- [Narrator] The more batteries they connect to the busbar,
the more voltage flows through the copper.
- [Shawn] 114.8.
- [Ron] Let's get outta here.
Let's get outta here.
- [Narrator] Shawn's wet wood diagnosis was dead on.
The dry wood solved their current quandary.
They're relieved they overcame this giant hurdle,
but do they realize
the shocking amount of work that's ahead of them?
There's kicks, there's sports,
but will this electric beast be stillborn?
- It's not doing it, hold on.
- [Narrator] Stick around.
♪ Monster monster garage
It's day six, Jesse follows the team in
for their final day on the battery powered car,
and discovers a new recruit from Milwaukee.
- Who are you?
- Frank, from Milwaukee Tools.
- What are you doing here?
- I don't know, but they were trying to help Jon
to put this bar together.
- Oh, so you guys are cheating.
He's got some manual labor.
- Awesome, how you doing?
I like that when a new guy just shows up on the team.
[all laughing]
It's like Star Trek where he's like,
[electrical sound buzzing]
- [Narrator] Shawn has his morning woodwork cut out for him.
To make up for lost time from the wet wood,
he'll have to hustle and build the rest of the boxes today.
- I got the easy job today.
All I gotta do is build these wooden frames.
They're doing all the hard work
on the battery connectors and busbar.
- [Narrator] Madman cuts and grinds down
the rough edges of the plastic pieces.
[plastic grinding]
Danny's made a jig to save time
on the final stretch of the busbar assembly.
- Made a straight edge, straight edged it here.
So there's one, there's two,
and I got just a locating jig for my holes here.
Push it in, grab your drill.
Two, four holes right there, done deal.
Always be in the same spot.
- [Narrator] Don from Robinson Manufacturing
delivers the copper drilled in all the right places.
- We've got the correct pieces,
perfectly done-
- To your print. - To the print.
- [Narrator] The team works together
like a well-wired circuit.
It's all hands on deck for the final busbar assembly.
- Frank's great, he picked this up so quick.
There's no way I could have done it without him.
Right buddy?
- Yeah.
- [Narrator] Now that it's fixed,
the two-speed power glide transmission
will boost the RPMs to higher speeds.
[rock music]
The tr*nny installs an intimate operation on this beast.
[rock music]
Jesse crawls up and under and puts his nose in the rear end.
- Wow, seems like.
- [Narrator] Despite Danny's best efforts
at getting the rear end ready for the batteries,
Jesse's got an idea of his own.
- Can I cut those a little.
- Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- I'm gonna do a little different.
I'm gonna go straight up and then cantilever off of it,
and then 45, so it doesn't- - Yeah, no twist.
- So it's got some leverage.
- Right on.
[mellow rock music]
- [Narrator] Being a real pro,
Danny steps in as Jesse's right hand man
and gives it his all.
Jesse's new and improved framework is solid as a rock.
The weight of the batteries won't be dragging this end down.
[movement flashing]
The Starboyz Stunt Team from Akron, Ohio drops by,
to give Jesse a much needed fix of internal combustion.
- So rad.
- [Narrator] They take over the mean streets of Long Beach
to raise the bar on what you shouldn't try at home.
[motorcycle tires screeching]
[cycle motor revving]
- Who the hell's policing this town?
Rule man.
[motorcycle revving to crash]
[Team laughing and clapping]
- That was awesome.
- You all right?
- Yeah, I'm fine.
- No rules.
- [Narrator] After the wreck,
Jesse lifts the little man over the handlebars
for a big time ride.
[motorcycle revving]
[Team cheering]
Buddy drop holds his own, and Jesse's proud of his sidekick.
- Back to work, [laughing] we gotta get some work done.
- Looks like it's right on the money, see.
My dial caliper eyes.
- [Narrator] Now that they have some elbow room
for the battery boxes,
Shawn has to get them built and installed.
- Hurry up, let's go.
[fingers snapping]
[Rich laughing]
Good, dude.
- [Narrator] While the team scrambles
to get the batteries in, Jesse decides
to play his favorite game with Madman, Nerd Trivia.
- Yeah, you ever go to the Renaissance fair?
- No.
[buzzer buzzes]
- You have a car or truck, or van
with more than one antenna?
- No.
[buzzer buzzes]
- Strike two.
Did you ever play Dungeon and Dragons when you were a kid?
- In college.
- Did you?
- My wife's an ex dungeon master.
- Really, come on.
[imaginary bat swinging]
- Put the first battery pack in the beast.
- [Shawn] What's the most
logical location we're gonna have to-
- Fire in the hole?
[buzzer buzzes]
Ta-da, one battery.
[rock music]
- [Narrator] After they stuff the bottom racks
full of batteries, they wire it to the next layer.
They'll need to do this between each layer.
- Don't talk to anybody around you.
- Bang.
- Just work.
- Bang, bang.
- [Narrator] As Shawn tightens the wires
between the first and second layer,
his wrench touches the busbar, and it throws a massive arc.
- New wrench, we need to pull batteries.
Need a new wrench.
- [Narrator] Pressure's on to beat the clock,
but they're on dangerous turf.
They need to hook up the batteries
and wires without k*lling themselves.
- Just check before I stick my hand in here.
- I'm holding death in my hands at the moment.
- [Narrator] Jesse's unfazed by the possible death trap.
- Hey, this isn't gonna be like Christmas tree lights
where one goes out,
and then we have to change the whole thing.
- No.
- He's the battery expert, man.
Only half of it. - A hundred miles from now.
- Hold that up right there.
Four pack, Danny, okay now watch.
Watch what you goin' there.
There you go, you got it, you're in.
- [Narrator] Danny seems oblivious
to the dangers of high voltage,
as he man handles the sawzall,
making room for the battery boxes.
- Tell me how close-
- [Narrator] The gas flap on this old rust bucket
is still good for something, access to the batteries.
The team uses their combined strength
to wedge in the last of the battery boxes.
- Hold on. - Let the other one move.
- Easy, easy, I wanna see this wire on.
We're in.
- He needs to load the batteries.
Focus on this one last task, man.
- [Ron] Yeah, just let 'em get this last connection.
- [Narrator] They scramble to stuff all the batteries in
before the clock strikes twelve.
[rock music]
- They're in.
- Alright, you got a pen?
- Got a pen.
- Motor amps 1400, battery amps, 600,
motor volts 200, 1400, 600, 200.
[hood slamming down]
Let's go for a ride.
- [Narrator] The tr*nny needs a little juice for the road.
- There you go, you got it. - Give her hell.
- [Narrator] A new monster comes to life.
And what do we hear?
[motor purring quietly]
Nothing but the sound of silence
as the volts surge to the heart of this stealthy machine.
- Should we try to race a golf cart or something
to make it, the Golf Cart Nationals.
- Alright, you ready?
- Alright.
- [Narrator] The final test for this monster,
a drive down Electric Avenue.
[cheery music]
[picture flashing]
[cheery upbeat music]
- That was good- - On that one.
- Good job.
Mac tools, Milwaukee Power Tool Kit,
and all the V-28 batteries you would ever want.
[all laughing heartily]
- [Narrator] Build cost tally.
Car cost, 7,000 bucks.
Build cost, $4,993 and 82 cents.
Freebies, $75,610 and 62 cents.
Total $87,604 and 44 cents.
[sign bubbling]
♪ Monster monster garage
Buckle up battery freaks.
We're at the Auto Club Famoso Raceway,
in Bakersfield, California for a battle of the ages.
Electric versus gas.
Here to man the B28 fortified Chevy is Jesse James,
and he'd rather be driving combustion.
- Stupid electric car.
- [Narrator] It may be stupid, but it sure looks pretty.
Jesse's taking on
the build team's resident long hair, Ron Jenkins,
who's here to flex his muscle bound Hemi Super Bee, buzz.
The rest of the crew is on site
to make Jesse's electric dreams come true.
Can this sweet Milwaukee battery buster
show a gas guzzling mechanical muscle car how it's done?
We'll give you two guesses.
Jesse's only got enough juice on this charge for three runs,
so he better make 'em fast.
[go light dinging]
And they're off.
[car engines revving]
You gotta be kidding me.
The electric car has died halfway through the first run.
- [laughing] That sucks.
It broke, if looks good though.
- [Ron] I think it popped the circuit breaker.
[all laughing]
Do you need one of those little glass fuses?
- [Shawn] Who's got a penny?
- [Narrator] The car might be lights out,
but Shawn's here to turn it back on.
- When the car hooked up and started getting some traction,
the current level went up so high it blew the breaker apart.
We had the battery amps at at 1500 per controller,
so we had a total of 3000,
and the breaker system just couldn't handle it.
- You electric card dorks are gonna look pretty stupid
if this thing doesn't work.
- [Narrator] With a little help from the crew,
the car is ready for round two.
Jesse's quick off the line.
[car engines revving]
It's not breaking down,
but it ain't breaking any records either.
Shawn thinks it's a traction issue.
- What I'm gonna do is try
and give a little more traction off the line.
I'll back off the starting torque a little bit.
- No, don't back off, let's go.
- All right, nevermind.
- The tires were just cold.
- All right, tires are cold.
- Dude, turn it all the way up, all of it.
All the way up. - All the way.
- [Narrator] Jesse's gunning for another go,
and he's got the juice for one final pass.
- We'll get him, we'll get him this time, you watch.
[car tires squealing]
[car engines revving]
- [Narrator] Can it be?
Is this electrified animal
giving the Hemi a run for its money?
Holy hot circuits of 14.53 to 13.54.
Jesse's cut the lead to last than one second.
The team may have lost the race,
but folks, they've earned the respect
of one master fabricator.
- That was pretty damn good
for a car with tool batteries in it. [chuckling]
That was a drag race, it left hard.
I like timed it just right, off the line,
so it left pretty good.
- All right, I've been waiting for this, man.
That was a good drag race, right.
- That's where we should have started, man.
That's the numbers we wanted to start with.
- Hey, it had tool batteries in it.
- [Rich] That's pretty amazing with tool batteries.
- Yeah, I cheated a little bit.
Did you see how I cheated?
[all laughing]
- [Narrator] But Jesse's got no time for thousands of volts,
bounces and jolts, for cars that don't make any noise!
Who's got metal to burn, sparks to fly?
The next Monster Garage challenge is just a round the bend.
[orchestral ending music]
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05x14 - Battery Powered Dragster
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A team of five people with mechanical, fabricating, or modifying expertise was assembled to modify a vehicle into a "monster machine."
A team of five people with mechanical, fabricating, or modifying expertise was assembled to modify a vehicle into a "monster machine."