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| The differentials are a Quaife copy of a Ford case cast in lightweight aluminum alloy. They use Quaife LSDs. The front diff is shown here. The front driveshaft is shown here without the armored Kevlar and stainless protective shroud. You can also see how the front drive system has seriously intruded into the driver’s compartment making a really upright seating position and a custom pedal box necessary. |
From the center diff, power is fed by a short torque tube to the rear differential which is a Quaife alloy differential case with a Quaife worm gear type limited slip and a 3.62 final drive ratio that was originally designed for a Ford XRTi rally car. The entire diff assembly weighs only 54 lbs. Going forward, a driveshaft supplies power to a similar front differential, the driveshaft is encased by a stainless steel tube wrapped in Kevlar to protect Rhys incase of driveshaft failure.
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| The small cockpit and upright seating position is shown here. Rhys is not a huge guy but he is a tight fit. The seating position is sort of like a sprint car. |
The Weissman sequentially shifted transmission is converted to semi automatic operation by an innovative pneumatic system. Nitrogen gas pressurized at 1800 psi powers the shifts via pneumatic cylinders controlled by a Weissman shift control ECU. The controller takes input from a pair of steering wheel mounted paddle shifters and integrates with the AEM EMS to reduce the engine’s torque output when the paddles are pulled.
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| With the interior sheet metal, seat and shielding removed, you can clearly see the center diff, driveshaft and front diff. |
At the right instant, the Weissman ECU commands solenoids to open, pressurizing the cylinders which move the shift rods, shifting in just milliseconds. Since constant mesh trannys only need to be unloaded, not decoupled to shift, the clutch is only used when starting or stopping the car. The system does not require lifting the throttle to shift. The system delivers super fast semi automatic shifting at a fraction of the cost seen in units used in F1 and WRC racing. The Nitrogen tank is good for 1000 shifts and an assent to the summit uses only a fraction of that.
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| The 4.1 liter V6 Hyundai engine is squeezed into the compact Palmer chassis. It’s a good thing it was designed for a V6. as you can see by the frame bracketing the engine, the chassis does not use the engine and tranny as stressed members like they are in many purpose built race cars.. This is good because production based engines were not designed to be load bearing members and sometimes suffer from problems when used as part of the structure. |
The RMR system delivers the performance and user features of some super exotic AWD units costing hundreds of thousands of dollars for a fraction of the cost.
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| The huge intercooler, turbo system suspension and ancillaries are tightly packed. A lot of gold kapton heat shielding is used to prevent things from cooking off in the tight confines. |
The engine of any Pikes Peak car is a critical part of the equation. In the thin air of Pikes Peak, an engine will lose anywhere from 30-40% of its power output over the course of the climb. The P580 uses a Hyundai Lambda 3.8 liter V6 from a Genesis Coupe as the base to build upon. The RMR crew has plenty of experience in extracting tons of reliable power and a wide powerband from this engine from their Formula D program.
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| Turbo system uses a ball bearing HKS garret based ball bearing turbo. The whole hotside of the exhaust system from the header to the exhaust is thermal wrapped to help reduce the risk of things cooking off in the tight confines of the car. |
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| The car uses twin sidepod mounted heat exchangers for engine cooling. Electric fans are used as a Pikes Peak car is sometimes going too slow to ensure adequate cooling airflow. |
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| Cooling air enters from the big main vents in the car’s nose and travels to the side mounted heat exchangers through the side pods. The hot air exits through these louvers in the side of the car. |
