I finished my drag racing season this past Sunday so have some more time on my hands, might as well start updating this thread.
I had a good experience riding this bike last year but there were some obvious areas that needed improvement. #1 was weight - it was hard to get an accurate measurement using the "big boy" bathroom scales I bought but it was at least 725#. As I get older I prefer things a bit lighter! #2 was power - while *very* torquey (300+ ft-lb) and a lot of fun to ride on the street, torque started cutting back around 70 mph and it really wasn't what I knew it could be. Something else that was irritating was that I had limited lock-to-lock, fine for a race course but awkward on a street bike.
I started removing items, weighing them separately, then reweighing the bike in order to try to reconcile the totals. I kept front and rear wheels level and weighed them independently. I stripped off 280# of batteries and battery boxes alone! While the old setup gave 100+ miles range on the street, it's more than I ever used. I think I went 50 miles twice all last year. I was pretty paranoid about keeping steel surrounding all the packs "just in case." Ultimately I ended up with a rolling chassis that weighs about 235#.
The new setup uses a similar permanent magnet motor (Remy HVH250) but is parallel-wound (as opposed to the higher torque series-wound.) I don't really understand what that means, just that the parallel motor can take a lot more current and output goes on longer. Torque output is about 250 ft-lb but instead of starting to cut back at ~2600 rpm, it goes out to twice that. According to Remy, power production should increase from ~100 kW (130 hp) to 180 kW (240 hp) with the controller mods I commissioned.