It’s not enough to be making the first shipment of production parts to his partner company in China this month. Kyle Schwulst ‘02 is also headed to the Bonneville Salt Flats Aug 8 through 14 for Speed Week, to put his electronic fuel injection system to the test – a field test on steroids if you will – in a production motorcycle with his company’s part bolted on and also in a “highly modified version of the same vehicle fitted with a turbocharger.”
Schwulst is owner and CEO of ElectroJet, an engineering design firm based Brighton, Mich., that designs electronic fuel injection systems for small engines, including four-stroke one, two and three cylinder engines. Schwulst has surrounded himself with Kettering alumni and co-op students at ElectroJet.
The Bonneville trip is an opportunity to show off what his product can do in Moto-chu 150cc motorcycles common in China, and maybe set some land speed records in the process. “We are hoping to obtain four world records within the class that these motorcycles will be entered,” said Schwulst. “It’s not every day a $600 Chinese motorcycle sets land speed records!”
Current land speed records for these small motorcycles are between 50 – 100 mph, according to Schwulst, which he considers impressive for a stock engine that makes eight horsepower.
The Moto-chu 150cc motorcycles include a “ride on” style and a “step-through.” The ElectroJet fuel injection system is scheduled to be included in the production of Moto-chus in China beginning this month.
The ElectroJet electronic fuel injection system is designed to help manufacturers of ATVs, lawn mowers, scooters and small motorcycles meet global emissions standards for 2010. The emissions regulations in China and India follow European regulations, which are actually more stringent than the emissions laws found in the USA.
Schwulst has secured the Chinese version of his U.S. patents for the post-production fuel injection system giving him a distinct market advantage in a country that is on track to manufacture more than 30 million motorcycles and scooters this year.
Speed Week is Mecca for engineering types. “We should have a great time out there with all kinds of interesting machines and plenty of go-fast,” said Schwulst, like a true engineer.
Bonneville Speedway is an area of the Bonneville Salt Flats near Wendover, Utah, that is marked out for motor sports. It is particularly noted as the venue for numerous land speed records, typically set during Speed Week in September of each year.
Schwulst decided to take the scooters to Bonneville after another Kettering alumnus, Matt Price, who owns Monkeywrench Racing in Novi, showed him the rule book and talked about his plans to attend. Add that the movie “The Fastest Indian” and it wasn’t much of a stretch until Schwulst was planning his own trip.
Schwulst feels the ElectroJet product will improve performance of these motorcycles in speed trials. “The product has already been proven to improve performance in our customer motorcycles,” he said. “ElectroJet EFI enables the vehicles to start easier, improves power, accelerate faster, and saves about 15 percent more fuel than comparable carbureted motorcycles.
“The system increases the engine efficiency while significantly reducing pollution,” said Schwulst. “Not only will these motorcycles set land speed records, but they are cleaner than any emissions regulation on the books worldwide.”
Helping sponsor ElectroJet at Bonneville is Freescale. Freescale Semiconductor makes the microprocessor that is the “brain” of the ElectroJet EFI module.
For more about ElectroJet visit http://www.electrojet.org/.
Written by Dawn Hibbard
810.762.9865
dhibbard@kettering.edu