My passion for fast cars:
I guess it all started at the end of the seventies in the baby carriage. My father who also is a huge car enthusiast didn't like the look and feel of my baby carriage. So he put on a couple of car sponsor stickers and optimized the wheel-alignment for optimal baby carriage cornering with negativ camber settings.
I basicaly grew up in a pair of lotuses wich was my fathers favorite car brand during that time. He even raced a Lotus Elan (wich can be seen in the car section) during the seventies and early eighties.
When I was about ten. I was returning from a school trip and my father was picking me up in the Lotus. I was laughing when he was accelerating the car and because he liked the sound of my laughter so mush, it resulted with a blown engine on the way home.
By the age of fifteen I was giving my four year older sister driving lessons on the familys summer house lawn.
That same year was the first time I drove a lotus. It was on the familys country house lawn. I was not use to the hard racing clutch that the Elan had. It resulted in two one metre long tread marks in the lawn.
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Who am I:
My name is Erik Bodin-Ek and I'm in my thirties. I live in Stockholm, the capital of Sweden.
I am an development engineer at Scania where I am working with engine calibation on the inline six cylinder engines. Before that I work with 1D CFD engine performance simulatins at GM Powertrain and AVL.
In 2006 during my last year of studies I did my prodject course in internal combustion engines where we developed a race engine for KTHRacing ( www.KTHRacing.se ), the Royal Institute of Technologys own race team were I am also a member. The engine is a four cylinder Yamaha 600cc with a 20mm (diameter) restrictor. To get as mush power from the engine as possible we turboconverted it with a VGT (Variabel Geometry Turbine) turbo. We developed an intake plenum with integrated chargcooler and stainless steel exhaust, all simulated with a 1D simulation program (GT-power). We also changed from carburettors to an advanced fully sequential fuel and injection system. I was responsible for the engine managemens system and mapping the engine.
Here the engine is installed in one of the testcells of the Internal combustion engine institution at KTH, were the engine was mapped.
Here I am (standing) mapping the engine while my friends Vandad and Marcus (sitting) are monitoring the testcell program for knock and engine parameter abnormalities.
Here the engine being mapped in the test cell with glowing exhaust and turbo turbine housing, temperature approximatly 1000 degrees celcius (Running rich on number 3 cylinder).
Here are the KTHRacing Engine team, I am third from the left, plus an honourary member: Gustav second from left who was a great help during the intallation of the engine in the car. We had not slept for 30h when this picture was taken.
This is what the car KTHR3 finally locked like. The specs: 280 kg and over 90 hp makes it a thrill to drive, trust me I know.
I passed the selection an became one of the Drivers for the KTHracing team. After the first run during the acceleration testing I could not stop laughing....... The car accelerated 0-75m in 3.85s (without wings), that is a final speed of over 100km/h.
Finally the KTHRacing team went to England to compete in the formula student SAE competition against teams from all over the world (I am first from the left).
The KTHRacing team 2006.
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