COLD hard facts!

So needless to say it is getting cold here in Ohio. How cold? 24 the other night when I drove home. I have a difficult situation for a EV. First of all I need 32 miles a day to get from home to work and back. That is more than some cars will go. Then I work 2nd shift so my trip home is in the dark. Sometimes with wipers on and it is always colder. I built the most efficient car I could find so that I would have extra left over. So when it got cold I could use heater and lights. Well after coming home the other day and feeling the voltage sag I decided to research it a bit more into the Effects of cold. I called my crown distributer and he looked up the data sheet for me. The data sheet said @80deg F they are 100%... @32deg F they are 80% rated capacity... and at 0deg F they are 30 % rated capacity. These numbers are way bigger than I ever thought they would be. So the options are....
1) Call it a 3 season car and deal with it.
2) heat and insulate the battery pack.
Well I did not design my battery pack very well for insulation. I have individual battery off buy themselves. So I think It is gonna have to be a fair weather EV.
I hope someone reads ths and understands how cold effects a lead acid battery. These were things that I never found before I built my car. I guess I was also fooled buy the fact I have seen frezer trucks in the forklift buisiness. I asked the Battery guy how they work and they Raise the acid level on the batteries. Making them Cold storage only.

Just the Cold Hard Facts :(

Larry

Still at it !

I was scared at first. It got cold and the performance of my car went down hill. No way cold affects this that much.. I was thinking what a horrible mistake making this car. It was barley making the 35 mile a day trip now and I was too scared to run the heater. Then It warmed up and... I was still having problems... Then I stated testing everything and checking things out. There it was. Bad cell In one of the batteries. Must of happened on the first 32 degree night. Well now, one off colored battery latter and I am back in business. I guess In my original purchase of batteries the factory had ran out of red tops... So they put my batteries in black cases until they got the shipments in. well now if I get one replaced I get the red top batteries :)
I decided that the stink in the garage over time would rust my car and tools if I didn't do something about it. So I got a bathroom exhaust fan that moves 50 CFM of air. I decided to blow it out the soffet on the usually down wind side of my garage. I will find out tomorrow if It does good. I also got a 12 houre timer that I still need to wire in so I can just turn the dial and walk out and It will shut itself off.

WOW ..All I can say is WOW

I finished the bottom of my car today and took it for a ride. WOW ... 40 amps to do 55 mph. Previously this was 55-60 amps. So then I got home and called my friend adam for some dinner. Afterwords we jumped on the freeway and jumped up to 65. 70 amps for what was 125 amps previously. I had no clue that aerodynamics were that hard on a EV. Here is a little video of 55 mph. Yes I have tested this going multiple directions on multiple roads.

It's been a Month now.

Gas free for a month! It has been nice not to shell out huge amounts for gas. But as soon as I stop buying the price goes down ... Just my luck. Oh well. I have started to cover the bottom of the car for weather proofing and for aerodynamics. I also closed off the front intake. this is my little prototype for now and a better one latter. before and after paint so you can tell. Then on the bottom of the car I just got 1/3 done today ... I will work more on it this weekend I hope.

About Electrical

I really haven't mentioned some of the specifics of my conversion. Caution this is for my 85 fiero GT. No guarantee that your car is the same. These are some of the things that I had to do with trial and error because I could not find them on the net.
First of all. When removing the engine go to the interior first. remove the center console where your elbow would rest. under here is the ECU that controls most things. Unplug all the connectors from it. Remove it from the car because It wont be needed. all the wires that came out of it should go through the firewall on the drivers side. Take the plastic grommet thing at the firewall and remove it from the firewall and press it into the engine compartment. 45% of the wires are gone now. On the passenger side of the car there is a mini junction next to the battery. Take the bolt out of it and remove the harness going to the engine. That is the other 45 % of wires. The other 10% are up to you... but most of the engine harness is disconnected and it should be easy to remove the engine. I did it the hard way and actually disconnected everything. This took forever.
With this harness removed the only thing that will suffer on your EV conversion is the speedometer and the Tach. I haven't devised a Tach yet so I hope someone gives me there insight on it. But the speedometer is easy. For some reason the ground to the speedometer went through the ECU. Use your wiring diagram to find it and go to frame. Then the 2 wires for the sending unit also were in the harness you removed. I ran these from the gauge to the sending unit. There was a purple wire on both ends of mine so I kept it constant but the other wire changed colors.
Helpful hint with the Speedometer is this. When you go to on or ACC the speedometer should go to Zero. If this does not happen it doesn't have power or it is broken. Any guidance on hooking up the Stock Tach would be great.

To Paktrakr or anyone that can fix this. help please.

My Paktraker is on the fritz. It does not read voltage steady. It isn't a reliable reading when the motor/controller is running. The pavk V/1 is all over the place. The Pack SOC does not seem to work at all. When It has started drooping all of a sudden it will reset to 100%.

Other questions I have are:
Can you set it to Not change to other Things IE: Alerts or SOC?
Can you make the light come on with a current Draw above XX.x A?
I think the SOC might fix itself after i get steady voltage.


Reply from Paktrakr:

Hi Larry,

This looks like a typical problem of electrical "noise" getting in to the PakTrakr data cables. This happens when the data cables (the gray cable between Remotes and between the last Remote and the Display) are run too close to the high-current battery cables, motor, controller, etc. Try relocating the data cables as far as possible from the noise sources. And don't under any circumstances run the data cables through the same bulkhead holes as high-current battery cables.

Ken Hall

Well I am going have to get it in the air to fix a place where I ran them together. The bad thing is I completely read the entire instructions before I installed. This would of been nice info before I started.

Driving my Car

I totally left out the first drive video and I haven't posted one of me driving. So... Here it is. Hope you enjoy and it encourages you to build your EV.

It's been a week!

I have driven the car for a week now. besides a Blown fuse due to me plugging in a big inverter into a small fused cigarette lighter noting broke. I am still having clutch issues .. I have replaced the master and slave cyl for the clutch and still cant get it bleed. Still no speedometer. I am going outside now to tear apart the dash .. Everyone says on the forums that it goes through the speedo first then to the ECU and the ECU isn't needed. Maybe I got something unplugged. Other than the 23 year old car problems everything has been going great. I have no plans on going back. I am wondering how long I can go without gas till I find that one thing that I need the old truck for .

I saved $

Yesterday I drove to work. I went 32.5 total. This does not include the few hot laps around the work parking lot to show it off. When I got to work I pulled out the old hydrometer. It said 70% left in the pack. Sigh of relief. Everything I read on the internet was true. Then when I returned home I had 40% remaining when I pulled in the garage. The 2nd half of the trip is a bit longer due to eating lunch. A little less than I expected but I am not a good ev driver yet. The hot laps in the parking lot didn't help the pack I am sure. Today I am thinking I will do better but Adam just called and wants lunch :) so who knows where that will be at. well at least I save a guesstimated $8.57. That is $60 a week in gas divided buy 7.

BUGS OUT!

Today I finally got 90% of the bugs out. the major bug was the vibration. So I dissembled the tranny again and finally found the problem. It seem that until 87 that v6 2.8l Chevy engines were externally balanced. This meant the fly-wheel had some extra weight on one side to balance the engine. now that I have a perfectly balanced motor instead of a engine the extra weight makes vibration.This is a little video of the removal of the tranny and motor ... I sped it up. In the middle We went out to get the part machined. I have pictures of that also but i seem to left my cable at the barn.
My clutch still does not work and I still need to adjust the parking brake a bit. but many ev owners do clutch less conversions so it isn't a big deal. Just sometimes it is a job getting 3620 lbs moving and I might want to use first and quick shift to 2nd to get into traffic.. and right now without a clutch that isn't possible. Oh yea the video was actually 7 hrs 1 min with a lunch/ machine shop trip that was cut out.

Today I drove MY EV!

Sorry for the lack of video but today I installed my Curtis controller and went out and found some bugs with the car. But first the good news. After the initial oops Dad and I took a little trip. From Harrisburg to Grove City Autozone in Grove City. 10.7 miles there and 10.7 miles back. We had also been tooling up and down the street all day. It was pretty amazing. Rt 62 is 55 mph street and it was doing it easy. I am impressed with my little car.
Now the bad news. The transmission was moving too much forward and back when you put too much power to it. Dad came up with a unique way to put a mount in to stop it from working the mounts. We got that done but the camera was out of memory. The right front wheel was dragging a bit causing some extra draw on the motor ... I think I need to clean the bolts that mount the caliper on the right front brake. I need to adjust the parking brake some more and I think It will be road worthy.

Wheels a turning! well kinda

Motor Is in. Well Kinda Dad and I put the motor onto the transmission. The bolts that hold the pressure plate on are fragile. Dad had much patience as I broke 2 and extracted them. I am normally very cautious and don't break things but this seemed to be one of those days. So after finding 2 metric bolts to replace the two broken ones I had the entire clutch assembled. After a bit of wiggling it around It slid onto the shaft then in to meet the transmission. I made the jumper wire.
Then I pulled up the suspension a bit to get if off the frame and put 12 v to it it went the wrong way!.. well the non thinker swamped the leads on the battery and IT Still WENT THE WRONG WAY!.. so then I thought to my self. Oh yea when I changed the polarity on the fields i also changed it on the armature. Then I thought to myself. What gear am i in ... Sure enough it was reverse and I had it hooked up correctly.
Now onto the bad news. So the other day when I dropped the transmission I decided to check the level in it ... It was low ... and the fluid was red...Further investigation found the fill with 5w30 oil tab on the fill plug. Well after asking the auto zone guy what type and how much he confirmed it was 3qt of 5w30. Wonder why I had auto transmission fluid in it. I didn't do it but I hope everything is fine and it hasn't been in there for years.
So I fill it to the fill plug and bolt it all back up and put it in the car. I get it all in there and It starts leaking the oil I just put in. Oh great the CV shaft I removed for the Motor adapter tore up the seal. Then I inspected and found that both seals were leaking. Even the one I didn't remove. Oh great. So I probably will drop out the sub frame again and replace both seals. More work! But I don't have a motor controller yet any ways.

MOTOR TOMMROW !

Fedx Called today and scheduled to deliver the motor between 1-4 tommrow ... They had the wrong adress. I hope this isnt a problem and they try to deliver to my one way size streets with a Semi truck. I just got to get the piolit bearing situation settled and I can bolt them together. Hopefully updates this weekend.

Ceramic heater

.


The ceramic heater is a neat thing ... I got to play with it for the first time today after melting my contactor the other day and replacing it. Buy a continuous duty contactor and save yourself some money. I made a little video and I hope it is informative for those interested. Also included is a picture of the melted contactor. It was one I just grabbed at the auto parts store thinking I could save some money. But I got to melt something finally. But I used 12v to do it. :(.

It's too hot to work.

Yesterday it was 90 and today it is 90 so on these days you get materials. all I needed was some wire for extending the PakTrakr remote farther. If anyone knows a reason that I shouldn't do this please speak up. I am just extending the length of 3 of the colored wires to reach the terminals. I read all through the instructions and it didn't say anything bad... I think the black wire has the thermostat in it but I am not gonna touch that one.
I am real close to being done again until parts show up. I need a motor controller and motor and I am done. pilot bearing might be a issue but I will figure it out.
I need to run one wire to the brake pump. I need to install the heater core and run the wires back . Then I need to make the PakTrakr octopus ( eight legged monster) look neat and tidy.
After these things are done I am just waiting on parts. I think I will send a "I am concerned" e-mail about my Curtis tonight. It was under the Impression it would be Augest.

Larry Pratt

Spring Spacers VS Batteries

And the Winner is... Spring spacers... These little pieces of rubber that I got from Jeggs for 12.99 each. The only problem is that they are a bit difficult to put in on the small springs. On something with larger springs they wouldn't be that hard to put on but the springs on the Fiero are small. Dad and I had to remove the lower ball joint and take the pressure off of the springs so that we could get them in. I hope they dont stiffen the spring rate too much or too little. See the picture below for the before image.
I also wired some of the batteries. The crimper worked well and I hope that I have enough cable ... 60 ft

Batteries and more.

So besides getting my batteries I also got the cable ends from online today and started wiring the batteries. Then I got interrupted ...WORK.. only got up to 50 volts but that is fine. I have a long weekend and I think the motor controller is here. Dad said that UPS called and they needed someone to sign for a package. The motor should be too heavy for UPS and the only other thing I need is a motor controller. So hopefully there is a motor controller there. This is the heater core I built ... the box is the same size as the original and the two right angles sticking off are the same size as the ranks on the side of the original heater core ... two springs clips just hold it tight against the old tanks. this fits amazingly well...
I decided to cave in and put a aux battery for the 12 v system. There was allot to work around without it. Maybe some day I will do it but for now a lawnmower battery will do the job and save weight. the entire automotive system only draws 32A with headlights, wipers, brakes, and rear window defogger.
I did decide to save a little money and make some crimpers for the cable I bought a pair of bolt cutters from harbor freight and a set of sockets for splined shaft... They were on sale and looked right.
You will need a torch to cut the hole and a grinder to shape it ... You will never get a perfect crimp with these ... I mean the crimp is very functional but the caws squeeze first in the back then finish in the front so any pinching of the material seems to squeeze out the front. Me and dad cut one open and it is great crimp... The only thing that I have seen that does a better job is my Parker hose crimper at work but I wasn't gonna drag 30 pieces of cable in there and crimp 60 times on breaks and lunches. If I had a to do it again I think I would of just went with a 6 sided socket in the jaws. I think It would work just as good.
Oh yea. The front suspension... Lets just say if there was a fight between batteries and frame... Batteries won. Now is gonna be when I find out If my spring spacers do the trick or if I need to invest in some air shocks.
I have also added the DC/DC converter. One thing I have found is that the DC/DC converter draws from the 12 v battery if it hasn't been hooked up to 120v yet. Just a little heads up.

BATTERIES!

Just a short post before I go to work ... Yes, I got batteries and I am happy.

More materials

Needed some more raw materials for future projects ... I have come to realize that the fiero is not at all water tight and that I am going to have to protect some of the electronics from the elements. I wanted to get some corrugated cardboard for the belly pan and I also think it would work good for encasing the charger and motor controller from the rain. If I had put them in the trunk I wouldn't have this problem but I have been trying to keep enough trunk for groceries. I told my dad that when my friends stop buy we go get a 12 of beer and some snack food. Well I will drive the cool fiero so I wanted enough space for a 12 pack of something and 2 plastic bags of groceries. I did not want to stack them in my passengers lap.
I plan on covering the bottem of the car with the corrigated plastic to stop spashing and for the wind resistance. I also needed some angle Iron to make the heater core frame and to kinda restock some of the metal that I took from dads barn. Then I got a inline fuse for the contactors I added and a contactor for the Heater that I still need to find a place to run it from ... I want the heater to only run if the fan is on so it wont melt into a puddle of goo.
I am hopeing to get batteries buy friday and then I will be able to wire them and make interconnectors charge them and then hook up my packtraker system.
The only thing that I havent got is a pilot bearing. I will probably pull the fake motor this weekend and then I will have the measurments of the inner and outter of it ... Napa has then in a catalogue that lists the size. Hopefully I can match one up. Otherwise I will have to drill one to the propper inside dimention.

Sorry for the lack of bolging..

I been working hard really. First thing i did is finish the battery boxes ... ALL of them .... painted w/ hold downs and mounted in the vehicle. It really doesn't sound like much but the battery boxes were kinda a pain in the Butt!
Then I decided to mount the charger. It is going behind the drivers seat on the fire wall. I mount it with some carriage bolts and a little bracket at the bottom . The thing is, that there are 2 shifter cables and a throttle cable that come right out the center of the firewall and they don't flex really well so the charger is on the left of them and a battery is on the right. After that I decided to take a brake from mounting stuff and mount some other stuff. I haven't got to play with any of my gadgets or toys so I picked up the Paktrakr and started reading the manual ... I decided that the front packs would be a great place for my final negative and my current loop. Also this would be a good place for a 8 pack sending unit. then i found a hole in the front cab wall and ran the wires in ... I had already disassembled the dash and it was all tore apart and I wanted to get it back together before I forgot everything about Its reassemble procedure. I removed the actual fuel gauge and oil pressure gauge. Then I drilled some holes in the cover and mounted the display. I really like how it looks.
Next project is The mounting platform for the Curtis and the contactors. I found a nice piece of galvanized metal that should be enough of a heat sync for the controller but would be easy enough to shape. I load my 4 batteries in the car where they will give me the shape of the platform . I start bending and cutting ... polishing and grinding ... I don't have a brake In the shop so clamp 2 angles on something and persuade it with a body hammer to make the bends. The piece of cardboard is the size of my Curtis controller and the 2 white things are my contactors. The silver thing is my pot box and the cable will come in from under the trunk hinge to mate up with it ... I got to find something square to make a bracket out of for the throttle cable. When all is don this will be mounted solid and painted gray like my racks.

Lots of work . I took friday off.

Well it was easy so I went ahead and hooked up the vacuum pump and tank system. You can see the pump on the right fender, the bolts actually go into the wheel area but that wont be a problem ... then the vacuum canister is mounted to the front cross member... I don't know the quality of it seeing how the gauge read 5hg when i got it. But it will tell me if it is shutting off at the same place every time. The switch is mounted to the canister but i haven't wired it yet. The canister has a check valve in it like the check valve in the brake booster. I have always hated the fact that you need to have a pump for the brakes to be assisted. They make too much noise for a "silent" car. But power brakes on a heavy car is nice.
Then I decided to tackle the big monster rack above the motor . It holds 5 batteries 2 one way then 2 the other then one again . I ran some angle across the front and back of the engine compartment then I started building the boxes form the back up. everything was going fine . Then I tried to add the double tray on the front. I went to put it back in the car and There was no way it would fit . I tried and tried probably for 15 min. So I had to cut off 2 inches of bars and make the front bar detachable. Everything worked out fine just more welding and cutting than I expected.
Little things got in the way ... I had to remove the pins from the springs of the deck lid and replace them with bolts.

PARTS!

Last night at work I get a voice mail from Dad. There is a box of parts here. So I wake myself as early as possible. Then I actually get out of bed at 10:30 . I head out to the parents house to find a box of goodies. Carry it out to the barn and start disassembling.. I spread them out on the table and check the packing slip ... all there except for the motor and controller that are on back order. Heater, contacts, vacuum pump and the 100% useful part... the motor adaptor. first thing I notice. the pilot bearing is the wrong size. I kinda wondered because this is not a S-10 and the adapter is for a S-10. Not a problem I just need the pilot bearing out of the motor I just sold. @#$%^@... Oh well, I guess I will need to go to the dealership to get one. Then the adaptor that I always envisioned as Stamped steel Is actually 1/2 thick cast aluminum. Then I put it down there to see how it fits and It doesn't ... I have a CV joint where what looks like a 2nd starter hole would be on a overseas reverse steering Chevy would have one. So immediately I grab the jig saw and start cutting on my $800+ adapter plate .... All ends well and I mount the Cardboard mock up motor provided buy Bob in Dayton. Then I had to run home due to a prior obligation. I am so happy that I finally have other stuff to do that destroy my interior.

Blog UNDER CONSTRUCTION !!! I just recently started using Blogger and I am transferring the stuff from my old blog. It is still working and complete. here it is.

http://mycast.orb.com/orb/html/public/profile.html?l=ba1100ns

Lots of work this week and weekend.

Well I haven't updated this week because I think I was frustrated due to the lack of parts that I was told would ship. But I made up for it Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

First there was the Stereo. The old dash speakers sounded horrible so Adam found me a pair of acceptable 6x10's at the Anderson's. When I took It apart I was surprised that they had been replaced before. and then that they were in horrible condition for being replaced before. When I took them out I found that someone was fond of medical tape for electrical work and did not own a Soldering iron or cutting and stripping tools. Please, please don't let kids wire your car. You will get stuff like this.


Well the tape deck was just not gonna cut it so I took a older cd player I had out of a S-10. It fit great and everyone was happy :). Sounds great.

Next was some battery boxes. I cut out the original battery box to make room for a pack battery and I also took out the Fuel filler tube cover and air intake cover to make room for a pack battery on the left . Then a 3 battery tray in the trunk and I am at a standstill until i get some parts.



I have a mock motor that will bolt onto my adapter and allow me to make motor mounts and then eventually the final box above the motor.


I also took off the Oil pressure and Volt gauge off of the top of the center console. I will mount my PackTrkr there and a digital 12v gauge

The PRICE $ 9683.45 So Far...

Running Price of the conversion.

Curtis 144V DC Controller, 500A $1,448.88 USD
WarP 9 DC motor $1,700.00 USD
IOTA 96VDC - 190VDC 55A DC/DC Converter Kit $188.88 USD
Brake Booster Vacuum Pump Kit, 12VDC $358.88 USD
PakTrakr 800EV Display w/ 1 Remote $159.95 USD
PakTrakr 8-Battery Remote x2 $159.90 USD
PakTrakr 600A Current Sensor $49.95 USD
CEV Heater: 108 - 144V 1500W with Housing $88.88 USD
Curtis PB6 Throttle Potbox $98.99 USD
GM Adapter Kit for V6 (2.8L) and 4 Cyl. (2.2L) to 9 $898.99 USD
Tyco Kilovac 500A 320V LEV200 Contactor, 12V x2 $179.98 USD

Now I don't care what all this adds up to because there is shipping and handling. All the stuff Above was:

$ 5,637.36 so far!


Part # Qty Description Unit Price Discnt Total
88169 2 84-86 HEADLIGHT MOTOR REBUILD KIT $7.95 ~ 15.9
69674 2 84-86 PLASTIC HEADLAMP GEAR $14.95 ~ 29.9
62620 1 84-86 HEADLAMP RELAY $32.95 ~ 32.95
Sub Total: $78.75
Tax: $0.00
(US PRIORITY MAIL (US - 3-4 DAYS) ) Shipping: $5.34
Total charged to Visa **** **** **** xxxx: $84.09

new current total $5721.45$ and still growing
Angle Iron 20ft 1.25x1/8 $42.70
Napa auto parts: $48.54
cv boot.rear pads, brake tool
New total: 5812.69$

60ft of 2/0 cable $201.76

New grand total:$$$ 6014.45

Something I left out for a bit until I sold the engine:
Car purchase price 600.00$
Selling the Gas engine -300.00$
New grand total :$$$ 6314.45 $$$

Zivan Charger w/shipping 1049.00 $

8-7-08 total = $$$ 7363.45 $$$

spring spacers and throtle return spring 39.47 $
2/0 terminal ends 50 3/8 and 10 1/2 72.65 $
motor mount and pilot bushing 7.88$

new grand total $$$ 7483.45 $$$

BATTERIES 2200$

9683.45

EV on the brain

It is totally wrong when it is 12:52 on a Friday night and all I can think of is stupid stuff like this.

Hopefully I get some parts soon !

For those that were wondering ... the Dark big rectangle is the motor controller ... the 2 little dark circles are my contractors and the little long dark rectangle will be my battery charger . The 20 battery looking things are batteries.

More Battery boxes. the next one back will be easy right ... so I grab the 4 battery tray from yesterday and start positioning it in the right spot ... IT WONT GO! $@#$. Eventually I figure out that I am gonna have to make 2 trays of 2 that are stair stepped and ofset from each other .

I did become a much better welder and It took about as much time as yesterday but was much more complex.

Top down .. you can see yesterdays battery box at bottom of photo.

So in total I added 64x8 lbs of weight to the front of the fiero. I am not counting the battery boxes because I am not counting the weight that I removed. The radiator , AC condenser , and spare tire mounting w/tire.

1 battery box down... 8 to go ?

Started on battery boxes. I know I am trying to get 8 of the 20 batteries up front. I know for sure that 4 will go where the radiator was so that sounds like a great place to start.

First you build a box.

Then you doubt yourself and put batteries into it just to make sure again

Then you place it in the car and after 50 min of DISCUSSION you decide on how to mount it

Then you put batteries in it to make sure you did it right.

I got on top of these batteries and bounced ... the back of the car came up a bit off the lift. I am happy with the mounting

Thanks for the help

<<< Mom and Dad . Giver of life, tools, and barn with a lift.


Adam pushing the car and picking on me :). oh he takes pictures too.>>>>



Bob for mesuring 2 times ... ordering more and then positing a good amount for me to start with
http://elfieroev.blogspot.com/

And of course all of the other people at EV album.
www.evalbum.com

It's been hot . Too hot to work .. So when It's hot you buy stuff.

Saw for metal, metal, 60' 2/0 battery cable and other supplies.

I placed the sub frame with tranny back into the car. Straightened up any Stray wires

Dad is the greatest. He got me a gift. I was just about to start making cardboard mockups of my batteries. Then dad gets me 4 brand spanking old dead batteries that match mine. Dad has conections at the battery place. It will be a confort to know the batteries will actually fit. It will be a pain lifting 64lbs several times to find out. Thanks Dad.