914 EV BLUES

Recent stats

2011-07-15T09:02:00.000-07:00

Here's some of my recent statistics. On July 10th, I ended up needing to drive the car a bit farther than usual. SO I decided to do a bottom balance as recommended by Jack Rickard. SO I drove the car and checked my cells and drove and checked and drove and checked. I used up 194 amp hrs on my 200Ah batteries. At this point I had gone 117.4 miles! I decided to use my ceramic heater to drain the pack further as that only draws about 13amps. I got all the cells to balance at 2.96 V each. This was a big pain in the butt but I did it.

Now the theory is... if I ever drive the car down to its limits (which I do not plan on doing), all cells will be even and dropping over the discharge curve cliff at the same time and they all will be too weak to push any cell into cell reversal. The car will just stop. Not that I would ever want to test this. :-)

Laguna Seca Raceway

2011-07-15T08:52:00.000-07:00

On june 26th, 2011 I went out to an event called Refuel at Laguna Seca. It was an all electric car event. I came in second in my class of converted cars. The Tesla cars were wicked fast. I remembered tailing and passing a blue Nissan Leaf in the event and thinking wow I am faster than a Nissan Leaf! My garage build car is better than a production car. However there is a U-Tube video of the tan Leaf in this picture being behind me for about 2 minutes and then passing me. Hmmm....

Not sure what happened here. Possibly a case of thermal cut back? My controller starts to reduce power when it hits 85C. Time for liquid cooling and a fan. Currently I am just using a large heatsink with vertically mounted fins. Although on the freeway even going 90 it has never been a problem. But on a race track I was pushing the 550amp controller to it's limits. It was loads of fun though. Even if I got my ass kicked by a boxy economy car. :-) Speaking of getting my a#* kicked, Here's a shot taken from a Tesla Video camera. I bet the guy was thinking...Who's the guy in the slow blue car?

Speaking of getting my a#* kicked, Here's a shot taken from a Tesla Video camera. I bet the guy was thinking...Who's the guy in the slow blue car?

Promoting EV awareness 04-17-2011

2011-04-18T20:35:00.000-07:00

This Sunday there was an Earth day Fair at Balboa Park. The Kick Gas Club got some coverage and I was on the news. Also had an article on my car in the Union Tribune.
http://www.nbcsandiego.com/on-air/as-seen-on/Electric_Start_to_Green_Week_San_Diego-120041864.html

CostCo gas line

2011-04-12T21:15:00.000-07:00

EV Grin... I was parked in the CostCo parking lot today. I took this shot of the car when I noticed what was in the background. People waiting in line to pay 4.00/gallon for gas.

I am still working on my ceramic heater (Almost done).

A few days ago I took the car out on the freeway and got it up to 102 MPH (not a super smart thing to do with tires inflated to 42PSI.) A week ago I drove the car 82 miles and used only 160.4 amphours on my 200 Ah batteries. I now have over 4,100 electric miles on the car and I am very happy with what this car will do. My typical commute to work is 45 miles round trip. No range anxiety here.

Bring on the HEAT!

2011-03-15T22:44:00.000-07:00

San Diego does not get very cold but I have had a day or two when I had to defog the windshield. So...

I am installing a ceramic heater with defrost vents and an interior vent.

The heater box is homemade using aluminum sheet metal, a 12V fan and the original plastic housing for the ceramic element from my $25 space heater. I purchased a defroster kit from Mill Supply for my defroster vents and heater tubing and flanges.

Dash light

2011-02-23T22:35:00.000-08:00

The Link pro meter by Xantrax does not light up at night unless you manually press on the meter. You can program it to have the light on all the time but this would be on 24/7. I added a blue LED strip to light up the instrument panel so I can see the Link Pro Meter at night. I like the look but may need to tone it down a bit as it's a little bright. I need to paint my dash panel flat black to reduce reflections. It is also a source of glare when the sun is reflecting off of it.

Dynamometer Results

2011-02-23T20:58:00.000-08:00

I was lucky to get the opportunity to have my car tested on a Dynamometer this week. I felt a little embarassed as my car has a whimpy 50 HP motor and this place had mostly muscle cars and sports cars with 10 times my horse power. However, it was great to verify the HPEV motor results. My results were very much the same as what they have posted. My peak HP was 51.5 HP with max torque of 90ft lbs. 3480RPM is about the peak of the power curve for my results. HPEV results peak power was around 3200-3400RPM. Looking at the Porsche 901 transmission data for MPH @ RPM for the different gears the data suggests my best shift speeds are as follows:
------------------------------- Stock 901 transmission gears

1st 18 mph @ 3500 RPM --------- gear ratio is 3.091: 1

2nd 30 mph is @ 3500 RPM ------gear ratio is 1.889: 1

3rd 44 mph is @ 3500 RPM ------gear ratio is 1.261: 1

4th 60 mph is @ 3500 RPM ------gear ratio is 0.926: 1

5th 80 mph is @ 3500 RPM ------gear ratio is: 0.710: 1

My driving experience is 1st 0 -25mph, 2nd 0-35 mph, 3rd 30-55 mph, 4th 55-75, 5th 70-95 4th and 5th vary depending on the terrain (steep hills are tough in 5th) 4th gear does pretty good on the hills on the freeway. I can start in 2nd gear but 1st gives better off the line performance.

Quieting the Beast

2011-02-10T20:21:00.001-08:00

I now have 2100 miles on the car. However driving in a 37 year old car has a problem with road noise. Especially when I removed a lot of the insulation to reduce weight. So... I am now adding weight back into the car to Quiet the Beast.

2011-01-10T18:37:00.000-08:00

I played around with the regenerative braking today using my programmer. The factory setting for neutral braking is 10% . I had been driving with 12%.

Today I tried 30%, 25%, 20% and 15%. The car drives a lot different with 30%, 25% and 20% neutral braking. 15% felt the most comfortable to me. I could feel the car decelerate when taking my foot off of the accelerator for gear shifting with the higher values. You had to keep pressure on the accelerator at all times to avoid this. There's a little of that at 15% but not much. So I will leave it at 15% neutral braking for now.

I now have over 1000 miles on the car!

San Diego Auto Show

2010-12-31T19:39:00.000-08:00

6 cars from the San Diego Electric Vehicle Association were in the show.
Mine was one of them. I never planned on driving this car in the rain however I had to drive the car on Wednesday Dec. 29th, 2010 to get the car in the show and it was pouring rain. I had to take the car home on Sunday Jan. 2nd, 2011 again in the rain. My hand crank windshield wipers worked OK but I may rethink the whole idea and add some pounds for normal wipers on the car. It doesn't rain much in San Diego except for this year. It's been one of the most rainy winters we have had in years.

2010-12-01T22:17:00.000-08:00

I am hearing a little too much road and engine/transmission noise. So I decided to install some sound insulation. I have a support beam on my battery box system that is bolted to the engine motor support bracket and also bolted to the frame. The bracket is supported with rubber mounts to dampen vibration. However I may be transfering noise and vibrations from the motor to my bracket to the frame.

(Added 01/03/2011) Turns out this was the case. I modified the battery mount support bar so it did not rest on the motor bracket and that helped. I also put the firewall pad and insulation back in the car. Makes it look more like a car and less like a go-cart.

The car is running great. My commute to work is 22.5 miles and 22.5 back.

I used 40.8Ah to get there averaging 1.81 Ah/mile (freeway speeds 60-70 mph). I used 61Ah to get home including a 4.1 mile lunchtime trip to staples for supplies. This works out to be an average of 2.25 Ah/mile. This is interesting. My trip home was in the dark so I needed the headlights. Also my headlights are pop up creating more drag? Not sure why the increased Ah difference. Possible elevation changes (ie downhill to work uphill home).

2010-11-13T14:34:00.000-08:00

11/13/2010

Drove down to Grangetto's Farm and Garden Supply store today in Escondido.

They have a truck scale. My car weighs 2225 lbs.

The scale reads 2200lbs but the car is missing its 25lb charger right now as it was sent back to Elcon for reprogramming. There lies another story.

Weight distribution is 1120 in the front and 1080 +25 in the rear.

This is close to the 50/50 weight distribution I was shooting for.

Front Shot

2010-11-06T13:21:00.000-07:00

Here's a shot of the front of the car showing fiberglass front bumper, fiberglass front trunk lid and some batteries

Here's the car with the top on sitting in my driveway. If you look really close, you can see the dent I still have on the left sail panel. :-(

Butt Shots

2010-11-06T13:04:00.000-07:00

Here's some rear shots showing a raised 3rd brake light, the back-up lights working and the fiberglass rear bumper and fiber glass rear trunk lid with the Elcon 3000 charger in the rear trunk.

INSTRUMENTS

2010-11-06T12:54:00.000-07:00

Right to Left. The original Speedometer/Odometer, the Xantrax Link Pro gauge to calculate amp-Hours (it also gives you pack voltage, amps, and a % remaining in the pack based on preprogrammed minimum SOC.

The Curtis 840 gauge to calculate RPM, volts, amps, motor and controller temperature. An ampmeter for my 12V system.

The green light bottom right lights up when the ignition key is on to let you know there's power to the car.

2010-11-06T12:48:00.001-07:00

More pics. Here's a shot of the car in Hilltop community park close to my house. It was a very steep hill to get there and the car had no problems.

The removable top is in the trunk.

2010-11-06T12:36:00.000-07:00

Front Trunk with batteries installed

Here's the Mid engine compartment with battery boxes and batteries, motor, controller and heatsink installed.

Wow! Long time no postings. Well... The car is up and running. THe road involved more than one battery box design in the mid engine compartment. But needless to say my welding skills are improving.

There are still a few details to complete. (Is it ever finished?)

Motor is in!

2010-01-21T23:51:00.000-08:00

Motor, Transmission, CV joints are in!

Motor Mount Fabrication

2009-12-13T06:18:00.000-08:00

Sadly, I don't have a plasma cutter. So fabricating my motor mount was done using an angle cutter, 4 or 5 cutting wheels and a grinding wheel. I went down to Escondido Metal supply and sorted through their scrap section. I found some 6" X 6"x 3/16" square pipe. I had them cut me a 9.25" length. Their scrap was a treasure to me :-) .

Motor Mount Design

2009-12-06T12:51:00.000-08:00

Here's the layout I'm planning on using on my motor mount. It will bolt to the front surface of the motor.

So as I see it. The motor mount I have would have worked if the bolt pattern
would have been like this.

o......o like this

o......o
But after mounting the motor to the transmission, my pattern is like this:
.......o

o...........o

.......o
SO I need a wider mount to accommodate the 45 degree shift in the bolt pattern.
Since the transmission adapter plate has only four attachment bolts, trying to rotate it (to adjust the motor bolt pattern) yields a 90 degree rotation. NO GOOD.
Of course we could drill new holes in the motor. However, I really do not want to do that.
The saga continues...

SETBACK!

2009-12-03T08:35:00.000-08:00

One of the cabinets in my garage decided to fall off the wall after hanging there for the last 10 years. Unfortunately my car was underneath it.

The back panel of the cabinet stayed attached to the wall with the lag bolts I had used 10 year prior. Sadly I now have a few dents to fix. I can't even bring myself to work on the car right now.

Luckily there was no major damage.

weight reduction estimates

2009-11-28T09:24:00.000-08:00

I couldn't make a table with columns using the blog text editor. So I took a picture of my laptop screen. (using apple key,shift,3)
I am estimating my final Vehicle weight to be under 2000 lbs. This is including batteries!

2009-11-26T23:20:00.000-08:00

Some of my posts are a little out of order. Here's a few shots of the car with my first time, self done paint job. It's not perfect but I needed to save money for batteries. The roller is almost finished.

I am still messing around with the 12V system

2009-11-26T18:40:00.000-08:00

Sean and I did a trial run on mating the transmission to the motor and installing the monster in the car.

Here the motor ring is attached to the motor. The adaptor plate and Hub assembly are sitting on the cart. Next the adaptor plate and hub are installed. Getting the hub to rest in the correct spot so the flywheel spacing was correct was a challenge. Next installed the throw out bearing and shift fork with new plastic bushings to the tranny. Here flywheel clutch and pressure plate are mounted to the motor. Finally, we mated the motor with flywheel, clutch, and pressure plate to the transmission.

Unfortunately the motor mount (which was for an Advanced DC 9" motor) did not work for the AC motor I am using from High Performance Golf cars. The bolt holes did not line up.

It was a trial run but I was a little disappointed.

Lightened flywheel

2009-11-26T16:20:00.000-08:00

Finally got the lightened flywheel (less starter gears) back from the machine shop.

Electro Automotive talks about a magic number when installing the flywheel. This is the distance from the adaptor plate to the front of the Flywheel (see black & white picture). When you machine off the starter gear teeth and lighten the flywheel this number of course changes. Duh.

Luckily I still had a stock flywheel to compare my lightened one to. Just adjust for the difference in thickness.

Engine lid quick disconnect

2009-11-09T21:15:00.000-08:00

I got this idea from Sean Molloy a local San Diego Porsche mechanic and racer.
Create a slot where the oval hole on the engine lid hinge is. (See pic.)
This allows you to remove the engine lid quickly.
I'd rather store the lid on the car than take up more space in my garage.

Get longer bolts for the brackets on the firewall that attach to the engine lid hinges. Attach the bolt in the reverse direction. Use a washer and a wing nut to attach the hinge to the bracket. (See pic.) Now you can insert and remove the engine lid relatively quickly.

More Rustoration shots (before)

2009-11-01T19:52:00.000-08:00

2009-10-29T23:14:00.000-07:00

My transmission is finished at last!

Thank you Sean Molloy.

My Lightened flywheel with starter teeth machined off should be ready by tomorrow.

painting and repair pics

2009-10-27T23:59:00.000-07:00

This was a bad rust spot that required the skills of master welder Sean Molloy.

2009-10-27T22:30:00.000-07:00

Restoring a 35 year old car is not for the faint of heart. Today after being more of an observer than a participator, I decided to start posting my progress in converting a Porsche 914 to an electric vehicle. Tim, Ross and Peter thanks for sharing your knowledge, trials and tribulations.

For the last year most of my work has involved more restoration than EV conversion. My goal with the restoration has been to make the car as light and efficient as possible. To achieve that goal, I have done and will do the following:

1. Use fiberglass front and rear bumpers.

2. Use fiberglass front and rear hoods and fiberglass running boards.

3. remove the headlight motors that raise and lower the headlights and replace with an air shock system. My inspiration for this came from this post (Porsche 914-6 GT Mechanical Headlight Raisers).

4 strip the interior to the bare minimum.

5. remove the windshield wiper motor and replace with a hand crank of my design. (no electricity wasted here)

6. Use air shox (that's how Camp914 spells it) for the front and rear hoods instead of the hood springs used on the 914.

7. Use Lithium Iron Phosphate batteries in the conversion 36 200amphr batteries. (476 lbs)

8. Go with a light flywheel. (It's currently with the machinist.)

9. Use an AC Electric Motor by High Performance Golf cars. 52 HP Max.

To minimize rolling resistance, I have had all the wheel bearings replaced.
I have had the bushings all replaced.
I added an adjustable proportional valve (JWest Engineering) to the brake system and had the brake calipers all rebuilt.
I also added a new fuse box with blade fuses (JWest engineering).

I also did some rust repair and body work plus I painted the car myself to save money for my batteries (the big expense).
I know I'm a bit light on the details, but I will post pictures at a later date.