# Black Midge Project



## Guest (Dec 15, 2010)

Our new project is home. It was purchased as a complete running and registered EV. We are going to be going through this build and fixing the little quirks it has and may have. We will be swapping out batteries too. Currently it is at 144 volts but they are 12 volt Marine floodies. Ouch. We will get some new photos and we will inform you of our findings and changes and any new photos and logs we may attain. 

The vehicle is a 77 MG Midget. Called Black Midge. Lets see what we can do to make this one sweet little ride. It currently sports a Kelly KDH14850B Series Controller and a Warp 9". Literally still new. Original Build began in 08 and changed a little during that time. Quickcharge Select-A-Charge charger on board set for floodies. Quickcharge now has a lithium battery algorithm that can be installed for a nominal fee if you send in your charger if you already have one like we do. They will set it up to charge a specific voltage and cell setup if you have lithium Prismatic cells like TS, CALB or Hi-Power or GBS. It is not adjustable but I am sure I could get them to install a couple different settings if I wanted to play with it a bit. I will talk to them again. 

Pete 

http://www.diyelectriccar.com/garage/cars/296

We continue to work on the VW Bus (Big-E)


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## Bottomfeeder (Jun 13, 2008)

Looks to be in great condition!

It should fly with a Lithium conversion.


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## Guest (Dec 16, 2010)

Yeah! It is in decent condition but has a few things I want to change. For now during the testing and reconfiguring I will leave the lead in the car. I did some controller changes just a few minutes ago and found a few things that needed to be changed. I am going to go take it for a quick spin here and I will report back. It is a tiny car but has a bunch of leg room which I really like. Kind of like my old MGA I had for a brief period back in 77. It had a buick v6 and powerglide tranny. Damn thing flew but was not in the best of condition. Had the wire wheels which did not last long due to rust. I rather like the older midgets because they do not have those huge late 70's bumpers. But it is still a nice vehicle. Looks to be pretty much rust and accident free. It has had a repaint. Original was blue. Had to have been done many many years ago. I like. 

Pete 

I will report back here real soon.


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## Guest (Dec 16, 2010)

Throttle is still cutting out a bit but I will dig out the problem. Never did like the PB6 I had in my Ghia. The one from evnetics is better. Going to recheck parameters and change the throttle settings and going to set the controller for torque rather than speed. I have a clunking coming from the drivers side rear but only when turning. Can't figure if its the rear end going or something else. Never dealt with MG suspension. It as leaf spring helpers added to help with the weight of the batteries. It is nice and level even with the weight and handles the rough road down the street from me quite well. The front is a bit touchy but steering is responsive. Almost too responsive. The motor is not a Warp 9" but a Warp Impulse 9". Damn thing is huge but it is very quiet. Much quieter than my GE I had in my Ghia. The GE is not that bad but it is not as quiet as the Warp Impulse. 

Has disc brakes up front but you really need to lay on the brakes to stop. I like the brakes from the VW better. 

Pete 

I will changing some things and going out for another drive. Will report back again.


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## ElectriCar (Jun 15, 2008)

Nice! Guess you'll be putting those Calb 100's to use soon!


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## Guest (Dec 17, 2010)

Where did you get that I had CALB's? I have Hi-Power 100 AH and yes we will be doing that soon. We still have things to iron out but it should be going well soon. I rewired in the evnetics throttle I purchased for my Ghia and it works sooooooo much better and smoother. We need a DC DC but that will come. More testing tomorrow even if it rains. Going to go charge up the car. 

Pete


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## dtbaker (Jan 5, 2008)

gottdi said:


> I have a clunking coming from the drivers side rear but only when turning.



I dunno MGs, but had a Sunbeam Tiger that kept ripping rubber motor mounts and allowing tranny to twist under heavy accel. I would check motor, tranny, rear mounts for sheared rubber, broken welds, etc.


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## ElectriCar (Jun 15, 2008)

gottdi said:


> Where did you get that I had CALB's? I have Hi-Power 100 AH and yes we will be doing that soon. We still have things to iron out but it should be going well soon. I rewired in the evnetics throttle I purchased for my Ghia and it works sooooooo much better and smoother. We need a DC DC but that will come. More testing tomorrow even if it rains. Going to go charge up the car.
> 
> Pete


My bad. I remember you answering my question somewhere about what happened to HP cells. BTW where did you buy them. Lithiumstorage.com has stopped selling them for some reason.


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## Guest (Dec 17, 2010)

Barefoot Motors. They have moved to Florida. May or may not open doors again. Too much red tape for converting and selling electric 4 wheelers in Oregon. 


As for the clunking, it only happens when doing a tight right turn. Visually it looks good under there but with full weight on the suspension I guess something could be amiss. I remember something like that long ago but just can't remember what it was. Kinda remember something to do with brakes. I need to jack it up and remove the rear brake drum to see. Also to relieve pressure and see if anything is loose. Going strait or on left turns or slightly right there is no problem but only on tight right turns. Car is too back heavy. I need to get some weight off the back. It is a car designed for forward weight not rear weight. 

Pete


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## helluvaengineer96 (Oct 8, 2010)

Great platform! MG are fun cars with less than perfect/reliable ICE. 
With a good electric motor you'll have the best of both worlds.

What does the '77 MG weigh right now?

Looking forward to seeing your project.




gottdi said:


> Our new project is home. It was purchased as a complete running and registered EV. We are going to be going through this build and fixing the little quirks it has and may have. We will be swapping out batteries too. Currently it is at 144 volts but they are 12 volt Marine floodies. Ouch. We will get some new photos and we will inform you of our findings and changes and any new photos and logs we may attain.
> 
> The vehicle is a 77 MG Midget. Called Black Midge. Lets see what we can do to make this one sweet little ride. It currently sports a Kelly KDH14850B Series Controller and a Warp 9". Literally still new. Original Build began in 08 and changed a little during that time. Quickcharge Select-A-Charge charger on board set for floodies. Quickcharge now has a lithium battery algorithm that can be installed for a nominal fee if you send in your charger if you already have one like we do. They will set it up to charge a specific voltage and cell setup if you have lithium Prismatic cells like TS, CALB or Hi-Power or GBS. It is not adjustable but I am sure I could get them to install a couple different settings if I wanted to play with it a bit. I will talk to them again.
> 
> ...


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## Guest (Dec 17, 2010)

1850 lbs with batteries.


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## helluvaengineer96 (Oct 8, 2010)

Man what a great platform. 1850 lbs and you'll be able to knock off 100's with Li.

And a convertible to boot! My wife's convertible mini cooper weights-in at over 2500 lbs.



gottdi said:


> 1850 lbs with batteries.


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## Guest (Dec 17, 2010)

My new pack will be about 280 lbs.  It will only be 96 volts and 100ah but it will be lithium. 

Pete


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## ElectriCar (Jun 15, 2008)

RE clunking. Two things come to mind. CV joints do that, usually when turning one way or the other but if you're in that bug van it doesn't have any. 

The other, just did this repair on my wifes car, was the wheel bearing. It was installed improperly and made the brake rotor wobble along with the wheel. That made it click (rotor clanking back and forth betwween the brake pads) and clicked faster as speed increased. Hitting the brakes made it noticably worse and made the brakes appear as the problem. A smart mechanic found the problem, not the one who changed it in the first place!


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## Guest (Dec 17, 2010)

Good thoughts. The Bus is not running yet. The Bus will have an all new running gear both front and rear. 

Pete 

The Bus will be our main focus.


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## ElectriCar (Jun 15, 2008)

Please tell about the fuel gauge kit u mentioned!


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## Guest (Dec 17, 2010)

ElectriCar said:


> Please tell about the fuel gauge kit u mentioned!


OK, OK, here you go. http://www.evworks.com.au/index.php?product=INS-ZEVA-FGDP

If you have a tach input you can drive your stock tach too. 

Low battery voltage idiot light or use it with a switch to cut back on your ability to drive. Like a Valet mode set up. 

The new version of this works well. Should have mine before Christmas. 


Pete


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## Guest (Dec 18, 2010)

Update: We are fully charged now and the batteries are holding at 151 volts for the 144 volt pack. That measures out to be about 80% capacity. The batteries are marine 12 volt floodies and are a good two years old. They are clean but not holding well. I will attribute some with the cold and some with age and some with not being used much. The evnetics throttle is connected but not installed to actually use on the road. It is raining now so not much will be done except I will install the throttle so it can be used and we are putting together the small pack of lithiums to go into the car. Since the car is rear heavy I need to remove those darn batteries from the trunk area soon. I will be configuring the controller for a lower voltage system as soon as the lithiums are charged and installed. 

Pete


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## Guest (Jan 8, 2011)

We have removed the lead from the Black Midge and replaced it with 120 volts of lithium batteries. I will be installing my Synkromotive until the new Kelly arrives. The new charger will also be used and I will be using the least setting for added protection to the pack until we know how it behaves. We will be monitoring the cell voltages during the charge cycle. We will check like every 10 minutes unless we see any quick rise in voltage levels. We may even go with the miniBMS because this vehicle will be sold and any future owner may want to have a BMS installed. We shall see. It is not for sure yet. I am still on the fence but leaning towards no BMS but for sure we need some sort of monitoring. I can split the pack in two for keeping track of differing voltages while out on a drive. We do want an AH in/out meter that we can log. 

Pete 

http://greenev.zapto.org/63ev/63_EV/BM_Extra.html


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## Bottomfeeder (Jun 13, 2008)

Awesome! I'm interested to hear about the changes you experience as you swap from Pb to Li. I'll be making the swap myself soon.

How much weight did you drop?
Let us know when you discover the range and acceleration (even if its subjective).


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## Guest (Jan 8, 2011)

Bottomfeeder said:


> Awesome! I'm interested to hear about the changes you experience as you swap from Pb to Li. I'll be making the swap myself soon.
> 
> How much weight did you drop?
> Let us know when you discover the range and acceleration (even if its subjective).


Battery weight is now only 292.6 lbs. It is only 100 AH pack. Should still be good. Not sure the weight of the Lead pack but it was quite heavy. I'd figure at least 70 lbs per lead battery so that would make the lead pack around 840 lbs. So huge drop in weight. Dropped about 547 lbs. And hoping for a much better range than what it was. 

Pete 

Range before I was told was about 15 miles max with two year old lead marine deep cycle batteries and it was a 144 volt pack.


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## Guest (Jan 8, 2011)

Excuse me, 277 lbs for the pack. It is only 36 cells for 120 volts. So that makes me even lighter.


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## Guest (Jan 8, 2011)

Ooops again. Not 120 volts. But a high 96. What I am doing is using a Select-A-Charge charger for a 96 volt lead pack to charge up a lithium pack of 36 cells. It's like a 115 volt pack. The charger will charge up to 122 volts. At full charge the pack will be at like 3.38 volts per cell. I may even bring that down to 34 cells to bring up that end voltage to more like 3.58 volts per cell. So more like a 108 volt pack in the end. I drove it briefly at 96 volts and the performance was better than my Ghia was a the same voltage. 

So 260 lbs should be the pack voltage. 

Pete 

been getting ahead of my self here.


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## RE Farmer (Aug 8, 2009)

gottdi said:


> Battery weight is now only 292.6 lbs. It is only 100 AH pack. Should still be good. Not sure the weight of the Lead pack but it was quite heavy. I'd figure at least 70 lbs per lead battery so that would make the lead pack around 840 lbs. So huge drop in weight. Dropped about 547 lbs. And hoping for a much better range than what it was.
> 
> Pete
> 
> Range before I was told was about 15 miles max with two year old lead marine deep cycle batteries and it was a 144 volt pack.


Your post #11 stated a 1850#. Is that with 840# of Pb? Sounds a little light; I could only get my glider stage weight down to ~1100#, and you have those big rubber buggy bumpers. I'm estimating being back at my original curb weight (1500#) with 36-TS100 and 60mi range assuming 200wh/mi. I'm anxiously waiting to hear what you end up getting. Like Sparkfire's Spit and your microbus, I have considerable restoration to finish (the car's been in storage for 20yrs) before I can install the EV systems.

Were are the Pb batteries in the boot?


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## Guest (Jan 9, 2011)

No more lead. Yes the weight was with the lead pack installed. The little car is very very light. That rear end is tiny as is the transmission. Not much left but a tiny frame and little body. I think I could stuff the damn thing into a Bug. Well not really but it is as very tiny car. Those bumpers are not much either. They look like a whole whopping lot of weight but they are not. No lead in the boot any more. Lithium only from now on. I assume you mean by boot your referencing the trunk. Could it be your referencing the motor compartment? Nothing in there but the controller and stuff. No more batteries up front unless one wants to increase the pack size. 

Pete 

I am installing my Synkromotive controller while I wait for my Kelly replacement and while I wait for my miniBMS.


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## RE Farmer (Aug 8, 2009)

gottdi said:


> No more lead. Yes the weight was with the lead pack installed. The little car is very very light. That rear end is tiny as is the transmission. Not much left but a tiny frame and little body. I think I could stuff the damn thing into a Bug. Well not really but it is as very tiny car. Those bumpers are not much either. They look like a whole whopping lot of weight but they are not. No lead in the boot any more. Lithium only from now on. I assume you mean by boot your referencing the trunk. Could it be your referencing the motor compartment? Nothing in there but the controller and stuff. No more batteries up front unless one wants to increase the pack size.
> 
> Pete


Yes, the boot is the trunk; the bonnet covers the engine/motor bay.

So all the Pb was in the trunk? Midge was way out of balance with that much junk in the trunk. Good thing you put her on the Li diet.

Wow! your MG is really light (glider < 1000# when motor & Pb subtracted); unusual as later model cars often gain weight when meeting new safety reg's like the ~1974 requirement for 5mph bumpers of standard height. My 1972 MG at 1100# was with the front bumper removed.


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## Guest (Jan 9, 2011)

No no. Lead was up front too. More in the trunk and behind the seats. 4 batteries were up front. The car was quite rear heavy. Not so hot for the MG which is designed for most weight up front. I actually left one lead battery way up front for extra front weight to counterbalance the weight in the rear. It was also left because it is going to be a pain right now to get it out but after thinking about it leaving it will be good for now. When I drove it with all the lead it was way too light up front. Now it has better balance.


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