An EDF Powered RC Car: Part 1

Project Inspiration

After finishing my Master’s degree earlier this year, I’ve found myself with spare time that I’m filling passively consuming content. Fortunately, not all of that is brain rot - many of my favorite online creators¹ spend their time on ambitious engineering projects simply out of pure curiousity and because they think its cool. Through this project, I hope to not only consume this type of content but also start producing it myself.

What’s This Project anyway?

To design, build, validate, and document the worlds fastest RC car

Project Goals

1. 250 mph
2. 400 kph
3. 111 m/s

Project Constraints

1. Me - I must design, build, test it (mostly) myself
2. $2,000
3. Must fit in the trunk of a R129 SL Mercedes
4. One mile of road
5. Running car done by July 31st 2026

Project Sub-systems

1. Propulsion - Anything that makes it go
2. Chassis - Frame, Body, Aero, Brakes
3. Electronics and Integration - Make everything else work

Propulsion Design

I like novel things and you like novel things, so I am not and I will not be building a typical off the shelf wheel driven RC-car. Instead I will look to the sky, ignore pesky things like wheel slip and traction, and pilot this car with air(for we all know air is stuff).

There are two methods of propulsion that I will be combining:

• EDF (Electric Ducted Fan) - a fancy way of saying “fan” that makes RC plane nerds feel cool
• Solid Rocket Motors - typically used in model rockets which gives them an unbeatable price-to-coolness ratio, and I also suspect the fans alone might not hit the magical 250 mph target.

Chassis Design

The chassis turns this car from a missile into a missile that just happens to be attached to the ground. Its main job is to be a bracket and hold every component together. It must let the car roll, keep it straight, and keep it on the ground.

Keeping the car straight and on the ground is a trickier problem to solve than I initially thought, so I’m taking more inspiration from aircraft and using active aerodynamics. A vertical stabilizer with an active flap combined with differential thrust from two EDFs will keep the car going straight, negating the need for a traditional steering system. A horizontal stabilizer with an active flap will keep the car from taking off. We aren’t reinventing the wheel, so we are using wheels.

For stopping, brakes are boring, so I’m going with a parachute, and the EDFs can even run in reverse.

Electronics Design

I’m being very liberal with the definition of “RC car” and the idea of me, a complete RC novice, driving this car remotely is pretty terrifying. So, it’ll be mostly autonomous.

To do this I will be using some sort of controller running software like Ardupilot that can run a gps waypoint mission by controlling both the propulsion system and any servos on the active aerodynamic surfaces. I’ll also need some pretty large ESCs and the batteries to compliment them.

Lastly, because this is the internet and it doesn’t happen without pics, I want some sort of onboard camera that has FPV capability so that I can also make sure the missile is going straight and also attached to the ground.