# C-Rex: Notailpipe's Honda CRX Build



## notailpipe (May 25, 2010)

Well, with three and a half estimated months left to finish my build, it’s about time I start a build thread, complete with pictures for the eye-candy addicts. 

Here’s my car, a 1990 Honda CRX. Ain’t he a gem? Yes, I said he. As my wife always says, he _is_ a stick shift. I got him last summer, and we named him C-Rex. 










When we got him, he had 3” lowering springs on him and it would bottom out on every bump in the road. I replaced those with a 1 ½” lowering, with increased spring stiffness performance coils for better handling (and anticipating a slightly heavier endcar, even with lithiums). I also found a nice set of Enkei rims that are just a touch scuffed up – when the conversion’s finished I plan to repaint them pearl silver. The rest of the car will also be receiving a paint job after the electric conversion is finished, new windshield, new rubber moldings, etc. What, you don’t like cancerous sunspots on the top of your roof?

Although this is a build thread and not a blog, people often ask me why I am bothering with all this, so I thought I’d say it once. I’m converting my car because I want the U.S. to be less reliant on foreign oil. Will my car make a difference? I don’t kid myself. But slowly the country is turning its eyes to electric and I hope to be one of the early users. Additionally, I was born and raised in the Motor City, and cars are a huge part of my life. Being an electrical engineer as well, it’s the perfect blend of interests to make a great (and expensive) hobby. My goal for the car is to be fast, fun to drive, practical range, and intuitive to use. I want any of my friends to be able to borrow the car and not have to explain “well, just click that lever three times to prime the pump… and you can’t use the heat while you’re using valet mode…” or whatever. The car HAS to have an intuitive OEM look and feel or the American public will never want one. 

But they _will_ want a C-Rex…


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## notailpipe (May 25, 2010)

Fast forward six months. My little sister has been driving C-Rex for several months now (since her car died). She must have bad car luck or something because C-Rex died and there was oil in the spark plugs. I took that as a sign – the EV conversion would now begin!

And by “conversion” I mean several more months of saving money for the build and finishing other projects around the house before starting another headache for my wife in the garage.


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## notailpipe (May 25, 2010)

Finally, time to get our hands dirty! A couple friends came over and we made short work of C-Rex. We pulled everything down to the engine in one day. In fact, we almost got the engine out too but had hangups separating the engine from the transmission. I wanted to try to keep the transmission in there if I could help it.










I’m not gonna miss you, you underpowered, least-powerful engine to ever grace a beautiful CRX. Nor will I miss your blown valve cover gasket and leaky radiator that I covered with aluminum foil.










Thanks, sis, for filling the gas tank up fully right before the engine died! Haha. At first I thought I was going to have to disconnect the fuel line and use the fuel pump to empty the tank. Luckily, my (all?) gastank had a drain plug that did the trick. I was worried about the flow being so great that I wouldn’t be able to put the plug bolt back in and would have explosive gas spilling all over my garage. But I quickly learned that it drains very slowly if I just put the filler cap back on. So if you’re doing a conversion yourself, don’t worry about that part. We ended up filling two of these storage bins worth of gas, which I happily put in Lexi, my wife’s car. 










Here I cleanly watch and take pictures from afar as my friends remove exhaust parts. I hate working on exhaust parts. Thankfully I have an awesome impact air wrench that made short work of every bolt it ever met. And awesome friends that wanted to learn about cars. Lesson one, get under there and remove those exhaust parts! It is the most fun part of the whole conversion! 










Now the _real_ fun begins – engine removal! My wife joined us for this part, in addition to being a faithful supporter of the EV, she brings a level of enthusiasm that is refreshing for people like me who already know how to rip out the engine. Here’s us donning our favorite headlamps (I love those things), and our friend Mark who stubbornly refused. At least Mark knows how to tie knots. 










We got the engine all tied up and lifted with the hoist, but alas, it wasn’t to be that day. There wasn’t enough room in the engine bay for the engine and transmission to separate and come clear. We came back another day, refreshed, and me having a good idea from my CRX forum. I piled firewood under the transmission, popped the CV shafts, and we let the transmission fall (onto the firewood which catches it) out below the car, thus freeing the engine to come out the top.










Freedom!!! We then put the transmission back in the car and towed it to our detail guy who power washed and steam cleaned the whole engine bay. You could eat off that surface! This was well worth the twenty bucks he charged me, since I saved hours and hours of the messiest job on earth, fifty million rolls of shop towel, and probably gallons of Simple Green. I mean, just look at it:










Time to go relax and have a cold one. I thought about selling some of the parts to recoup some costs, but in the end I'm so impatient and didn't think it was worth my time dealing with Craigslist deadbeats, so I ended up posting it all for free online. It was all gone the same night.


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## favguy (May 2, 2008)

Very nice so far, your engine bay looks just wonderful! 

Paul


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## gor (Nov 25, 2009)

beautifull...
N., what you planning to put on it? ... sorry, - on he? : ))))


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## powerhouse (Apr 1, 2011)

Cant believe how clean he made the engine bay... beautiful! Anxious to read more!


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## notailpipe (May 25, 2010)

Thanks, guys, for all the kind words. 

I plan to put in a WarP9 and 45 130Ah CALBs in there, with a Zilla-1K. It should be much faster than the original car, which was the DX, but it should be much faster than even an Si (sports version).

The car will look much better when it gets its new paint job this spring. I've got a new hood, new fenders, front lip, and am going to do a couple simple aero mods to it.

New update to come soon, am writing it up...


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## notailpipe (May 25, 2010)

The next weekend I took a short interlude from the EV, but worked on something related. I had always planned to do some welding for the conversion. So I wanted to practice my welds before working on anything critical, so I built a cart to hold my welder. Yes, those are perfectly working (cheapie china) socket wrenches that hang the cables. Figured that gave my cart a little personality. 

Next update to come: mating the motor to the transmission!


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## notailpipe (May 25, 2010)

The next step was to mate my new WarP9 with my existing transmission. I decided to keep the transmission to optimize both range and acceleration, as well as stock OEM feel. I also replaced the clutch at this point, since it’s all open and apart. I went with a Stage-2 Organic clutch plate. From my research, an OEM or even Stage 1 clutch would probably be unable to handle the torque I aim to throw at it. And a Stage 3 (or Hockey Puck) clutch would be too uncomfortable/annoying to drive, due to the stronger springs. That went against my goal to keep it feeling like a daily driver, so I went with Stage 2. Since an EV needs no “friction feathering” when starting from a stop and thus there is only wear in between shifting gears, I fully expect this new clutch to long outlast the rest of the vehicle. I also got the lightest chromoly flywheel I could find – an 8 pounder made by Fidanza (the stock one weighed in at 20lbs). This is actually a pretty big deal. It should lower my rotational mass quite a bit, helping with range and acceleration. And since I don’t need to balance out any vibrations like in an ICE car, I can go with the lightest weight possible.

To mate the two, I went with an off-the-shelf adapter plate and hub coupler made by Randy at CanEV. My friend has a CNC mill and so I entertained the thought of building it myself, but in the end, time is money and I only have so many hours a week to work on the project. Premade solutions are my friend. I estimate I would’ve spent probably 40 hours measuring, drawing in CAD, cutting in wood, testing, recutting in aluminum, etc. That’s 40 hours I’d rather be driving my car. All in all, the adapter is awesome and was well worth the price tag. There is a good reason Randy’s cost the most – you get what you pay for. Everything I needed, bolts, shaft key, Loctite, etc., was included in the package. Additionally, Honda Civics/CRXs have quite a large “magic number” that would typically mean a very thick and heavy spacer in all the other adapters I considered. The one from CanEV is cast and thus any shape they want. Full disclosure: I actually lost two months on the project trying to get an adapter from another source for cheaper, but was unhappy with the adaptor that evolved out of that large magic number and wasn’t what I’d agreed to purchase. To their credit, they refunded my money with no hassle and were really upright people, so their names won’t be revealed. I think my case was an isolated case. And so if you have a Honda, just get this adapter. 










Here’s the coupler mounted to the electric motor. I used a little lubricant to get the coupler on there; it is such a tightly machined fit. Tap it on with a rubber mallet until it bottoms out against the shaft bottom, then torque the locking allen bolts firmly. Everything at this point, I mean everything, gets a coat of red Loctite to prevent loosening from any vibrations (though there aren’t likely to be many with an electric motor).










Here’s the side view after bolting the adapter plate to the motor. I’ve also already mounted the new flywheel in this picture. See what I mean about the custom casting of the thick spacing between the motor and the adapter face? That would normally be a thick spacer ring of aluminum, adding unneeded weight. 










Here I’ve installed the new clutch plate and clutch housing to the assembly. It’s now ready to slip the transmission shaft in, aligned to the clutch plate, and mate the two assemblies. Below is the final powertrain assembly – ready to be mounted!


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## dimitri (May 16, 2008)

Excellent build thread, subscribing.... good luck with your project! 

I hope you didn't forget to change direction of brush advancement on Warp9 since Hondas turn in opposite direction. Also keep that in mind when wiring your motor's field and armature, make sure it spins in proper direction.

That adapter plate and shaft coupler look awesome! Randy certainly knows his stuff.


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## favguy (May 2, 2008)

Yes, really nice adapter plate, looks absolutely original oe, fantastic work 

Did you consider removing the ring gear teeth from the flywheel, or are they getting utilised for something, tach etc?


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## notailpipe (May 25, 2010)

favguy said:


> Yes, really nice adapter plate, looks absolutely original oe, fantastic work
> 
> Did you consider removing the ring gear teeth from the flywheel, or are they getting utilised for something, tach etc?


No, I'm not using the ring gear, and I did think about removing it. But in the end I decided I was already saving so much weight, it wasn't worth the hassle. I also wasn't sure if that would compromise the weight balancing in any way so I just left it alone.

Thanks Dimitri for double checking, I did reverse the direction of the motor!  I have yet to apply any power to it yet, just haven't had time, but I'd like to stick a 12V battery on there soon just to see a satisfying FORWARD rotation.


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## notailpipe (May 25, 2010)

Time came to mount the motor and transmission assembly into the car. The original assembly was held by three rubberized mounts on the transmission and only one held the original ICE towards the driver’s side. The goal of course was to reuse the engine mount for the electric motor, including reusing the rubber to isolate the chassis from torque twisting and road vibrations somewhat. 










I originally tried to make a custom mount out of angle iron with my newly-practiced welding skills (hence the whole reason, besides keeping my welder off the garage floor, why I made a welding cart the weekend before). As you can see, the final product is quite sturdy. The problem was, I kinda just did it as I went, figuring that when I got to how it would actually mount to the original bracket, it would be obvious. But due to where things lined up, there wasn’t really a good way to fasten my mount to the car. Additionally, the thickness of the angle iron meant I couldn’t get it around the dual output shaft of the motor without cutting off most of the motor shaft. I don’t have any plans for A/C or to run anything off that shaft, but I just didn’t like the idea of getting rid of a perfectly good shaft. 










So I decided to stop being stubborn and go with a mount that I’d seen before online, courtesy of the blog Open-Source Civic. It’s actually quite simple and thus a quality mount. I originally didn’t want to use it because I wanted to do some welding, but later realized that is a stupid reason to do the wrong thing. So there’s my own version of the motor mount, for a CRX. Instead of spending hours making an aesthetic curve with a jigsaw, I just cut half of a hexagon off the bottom. Just a few minutes with my grinding wheel.  This mount still required me to cut some of the output shaft off, but not nearly as much. I cut about an inch off and retained slightly more than an inch. Plenty to mount my RPM sensor. Then a connecting linkage is put in place and several carefully measured drill holes, a coat of primer and hard enamel paint, and plenty of Loctite later… <wa-la> the motor is mounted!










That pump you see mounted to the top of the motor mount is my vacuum pump for the brakes, I'll cover that shortly!


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## notailpipe (May 25, 2010)

Next up: heater installation. I decided to go with a ceramic heater mounted in the heating duct instead of using the existing coolant lines. For whatever reason I just think it’s more elegant and simpler to go all electric there, plus electric heat comes fairly instantly instead of having to heat up a reservoir of water first. My original plan was to mount the heating element directly into the heater core, which I pointed out in the picture. Many people did that before and it sorta makes sense. But after getting in there to remove the core, I realized that if I ever had any problems with it, it would be an extreme pain to get to. First of all, getting the dash out required three people, and we cracked the windshield in the process. The windshield’s getting replaced anyway, but that’s just a sign of how inconvenient it is to get to. Not only that but once in there, removing the heater assembly was also a pain. I then realized that there’s no reason it has to be there. 

I decided to put it in the heating duct that connects the blower to the heater assembly. This offered lots of advantages. For one (and it's the biggest one), if there is ever a problem, I can get the whole unit out by simply removing the glovebox with three screws instead of hours of messing with trim/wires/tachometer cables/etc. Second, when cool air is wanted, the heating element simply remains off and is virtually no impediment to the air coming from the blower. Third, this way I remove the need for the “heat flap” wire that is controlled through the temperature dial. I simply locked the heat flap so it never shunts air where the heater core used to be, thus removing the cable. This is nice because I am going to use the temperature control dial space for an EV Display (SOC gauge) instead. Lastly, it’s not a lot but I lose the weight of the heater core since I don’t need it. 










Here is my heater, ready to be tested. It’s a little Sunbeam ceramic element rated at 1500W. Supposedly enough for a small room, so C-Rex should be comparable after all the thermal losses. Walmart’s the only place I found stocking them – it’s allegedly a seasonal item. I guess that makes sense.  Now that I got it all stripped down naked, I used my little wall-clock/thermometer to see how hot it would get with some airflow.










Here is as hot as my thermometer measured, 115 degrees Fahrenheit. The next snapshot after this the display just says “HI.” I figured that’s hot enough to only need one in the system.










I mounted the element into the duct complete with its original mounting plastic. I figured that some engineering already went into the material that can hold a high-temperature/high-voltage element safely and that UL had already verified – I didn’t want to take any chances with burning my car/garage down. So I kept the original mounts, even the safety temperature switch it comes with, and screwed into that plastic from the outside of the duct. It’s a very secure setup – that heater ain’t goin nowhere. When mounted in the car and running off 120VAC with the blower motor going, the outside of the duct only reaches slightly warm to the touch after running on full heat for half an hour or so.

I’d describe the heat coming out of the vents as moderate. Feels hot enough it should be able to defrost my windows, but it’s not so hot that I’d probably ever take off my winter jacket inside the car. At this point, I don’t want to go to two elements since one takes a whole 1500W when in use. After I get through the first winter (probably won’t even be in by this winter to test it), we’ll see if it needs upgrading. 

However, the heat output _did_ have an effect on my temperature control decision. Being an electrical engineer, I thought it’d be fun to design a simple feedback-controlled thermostat. So I did that on paper and was satisfied it was simple and would work reliably. Then I got to actually feeling the heat coming out of the vents and now I think a thermostat is overkill. I couldn’t picture needing to ever adjust the heat much lower than “fully on,” so I decided in the interest of simplicity and time, I will just make my heat fully on or off, and use the blower fan control to lessen it if I want less heat. This will be a change from the OEM feel of the car, but I think it’s a simple enough one. And anyone borrowing the car in the winter will likely not be fiddling with the heater controls since they will want heat as well. 

On the bright side, my Zilla is liquid-cooled and I will be using my thermostat control circuit that I designed for that instead. With the circuit I can easily change a few elements out and adjust a desired trip point where the fans for the heatsink come on when it gets hot enough. When I install that system and build the circuit, I’ll post my schematic here so others can use it if they want. 

One last benefit of not having a variable temperature (just on/off) for my heat is it frees up that space where the knob is for my SOC gauge. This is key because I wanted the gauge to be mounted somewhere where it could be read easily and not have to take my eyes off the road for too long. There’s no room in the dash for the SOC gauge, though I will be using its output to drive my original Fuel gauge so I can easily estimate remaining range. This will be one deviation from OEM, which had a heater control knob there, but I think the above-listed advantages makes that worth it.


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## EVfun (Mar 14, 2010)

notailpipe said:


> I mounted the element into the duct complete with its original mounting plastic. I figured that some engineering already went into the material that can hold a high-temperature/high-voltage element safely and that UL had already verified – I didn’t want to take any chances with burning my car/garage down. So I kept the original mounts, even the safety temperature switch it comes with, [snip]


Make sure you rewire that safety switch so its contacts control the heater element relay, not directly switch out the element as they did originally. The air gap on those thermal switches are not nearly large enough to switch 100 or more volts *DC*, they are strictly AC rated.


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## notailpipe (May 25, 2010)

EVfun said:


> Make sure you rewire that safety switch so its contacts control the heater element relay, not directly switch out the element as they did originally. The air gap on those thermal switches are not nearly large enough to switch 100 or more volts *DC*, they are strictly AC rated.


Good catch! I'll make sure that gets fixed, thanks.


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## notailpipe (May 25, 2010)

Look what's on its way... 
Can anyone guess what that is?


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## EVfun (Mar 14, 2010)

notailpipe said:


> look what's on its way...
> Can anyone guess what that is? :d


*Lithium Batteries!*


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## notailpipe (May 25, 2010)

Ding ding! 18.72kWh worth, to be exact!


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## notailpipe (May 25, 2010)

Speaking of batteries, anyone have any thoughts on the AUX 12V battery?

I've decided to use a small 12V battery in case of DC/DC failure. So it only needs power really for a short time if the DC/DC dies or big enough to handle headlight/vacuum pump surges. 

My current plan is to get an Odyssey PC680 lead-acid battery. It's 221Wh, which should be plenty, and is fairly light (15lbs), but a little pricey at $135 about. It's a deep-cycle, no maintenance battery. Comparable weight built out of TS 40Ah cells would cost twice as much and about twice the capacity.

I've heard now a few people mention lawn tractor batteries, or maybe motorcycle batteries (thought those were 6V though).

Just wondering what others have concluded...


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## dimitri (May 16, 2008)

This largely depends on your DC-DC connection. If its always on ( my preference ) then aux battery can be very small. I used lawn mower battery ( $25 at any hardware store ), later switched to 4 Headway 10AH cells ( under $80 and will last forever ).

If DC-DC is key switched, then you may need larger battery if the car will be sitting idle for days at a time, in which case small battery will not have enough time to charge while driving and will eventually run low.


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## notailpipe (May 25, 2010)

And now something of great importance to any car, ICE or electric…
A cupholder! CRX’s did not come with them. Many with more modern cars will not be able to fully appreciate the importance of this, but the folks over at CRXcommunity.com were excited about my writeup! 

Before: Note the useless pocket (there are plenty of other places in the car for sunglasses, nothing for drinks!):









After: One ice-cold beverage plz!









The cupholder comes from an Acura Integra, and replaces one of two little pockets in the dash. Now that the heater and cupholder are installed, only one thing remains before I can re-install the dash -- the conversion of all dash lights to LEDs.


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## notailpipe (May 25, 2010)

dimitri said:


> This largely depends on your DC-DC connection. If its always on ( my preference ) then aux battery can be very small. I used lawn mower battery ( $25 at any hardware store ), later switched to 4 Headway 10AH cells ( under $80 and will last forever ).
> 
> If DC-DC is key switched, then you may need larger battery if the car will be sitting idle for days at a time, in which case small battery will not have enough time to charge while driving and will eventually run low.


Can you elaborate on key switched? I plan to have the DC/DC converter always on and always topping off the battery. So the battery only helps with current surges, like headlights, and is there long enough to get me off the road if the DC/DC dies.

I am seeing some 12V lawnmower batteries at Home Depot for $25, and 14lbs. I'm liking the sound of this idea.  Obviously, they will have lower capacity rating but that probably does not matter. Weight and price are the important specs for this application. So that first battery I linked to is probably paying 5x more money for capacity I'll never need.

Since it's a starter battery, not a deep-discharge, I assume it is designed to always be topped off by a charger (or alternator) safely. Do you think that's a good assumption?

The exact model I'm looking at is this one by Interstate Battery.


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## dimitri (May 16, 2008)

Yes, this is exactly the same one I used for over a year. As long as DC/DC is always on and battery is always topped off, it will work fine.

Mine was working fine and I did not have to replace it with Headway cells, but I wanted to see how Headways will work in this application , plus I was on Jihad to remove all Lead Acid from my life


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## notailpipe (May 25, 2010)

Sweet. Okay, I've decided to go this route as well. Feels great to get another design decision out of the way! 

I'm actually looking at a different battery now, but same idea. I like this battery by Interstate. A little more money than the other one I linked, but less than half the weight, at only 5.4lbs! It's only 7.2Ah, so a little less than your Headway battery, but the one at Home Depot doesn't list the Ah, so I can't really compare. 7.2Ah is still plenty to limp home, and at the very least get off the road. I won't be blasting my music if my "DC/DC has died" warning light goes off... haha


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## dimitri (May 16, 2008)

I know this battery well, removed a handful of them from my UPSs and swapped for LiFePO4 as well, using cheap Chinese A123 1AH cells. It should work OK along with DC/DC, as long as you don't have any heavy loads on 12V side.


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## notailpipe (May 25, 2010)

Cool. "Okay" performance is all I need for this. My vacuum pump is probably the biggest 12V culprit at 8A, but I've got a pretty decent reservoir to keep on/off thrash to a minimum. After that, maybe the stereo, but no subwoofer/amp. After that, all my lights in my car (except my headlights, which are HID and thus a little less power than halogens), are being converted to LED. So I guess I've done the most I can do.


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## oldschoolhondathunder (Sep 29, 2011)

Great thread! Very interesting to read and learn. Any updates since your last post? I'm an eye-candy addict, so thanks for the pictures too.


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## notailpipe (May 25, 2010)

Sorry for the slow updates. Things have been crazy at work and at home...

My progress has been very "researchy" lately. Reading my Zilla manual, thinking about safety concerns and how I want to hook up everything, and designing my overall circuit diagram (in my head, probably won't write it down).

So far, my conclusions from my research:

Picked a battery --> above

Likely to go with 1 or 2 Tyco EV200 contactors, which support 500A nominal (that will be a ton in my tiny car)

Picked a charger --> Elcon PFC-2500, because I want the option to charge 120/240VAC. I'll use a 240VAC outlet and make a tiny adapter spliced together for opportunity charging at friend's/family's house off 120V.

Picked a BMS --> MiniBMS by CleanPowerAuto

Picked a SOC gauge --> EV Display by CleanPowerAuto (nice designs, Dimitri)

Mostly picked a DC/DC converter --> I like the price point and overall features of this converter by ACME, but I've never heard of them before. And I tend to shy away from things that remind me of Roadrunner cartoons...  Anyone heard anything good or bad about this one?

The plan is to order everything and get it on the way, while I work on my battery racks this weekend!


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## notailpipe (May 25, 2010)

Here's a little more of what I've been up to:

First, a lot of vacationing.  That's always nice, but it's been a little frustrating to not make as much progress as I'd like on the car. I know, I know, pretty good dilemma to be in.

My wife and I took a little trip to Silicon Valley. Woulda been cool to visit Tesla (though I heard they're not doing so well)...









Being the enginerds we are...


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## notailpipe (May 25, 2010)

Being slowly working on my monster-sized vacuum reservoir. I got a vacuum gauge so I can keep on eye on the system til I trust it (kinda scared of brakes). This involved many trips back and forth to the hardware store. But at the end of it, I FINALLY understand threads (UNC/UNF/NPT)! So that made it worth it.


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## notailpipe (May 25, 2010)

And another update is that I painted my needles on my gauges.  It looks awesome, and it'll look even better when it's lit up with pure white lights from the LEDs! I painted em the same color as my car body (got some touchup paint)..

Before:









Taping:









Painting:









After!


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## notailpipe (May 25, 2010)

Also... exciting news, my batteries are in Denver waiting for me! I'm kinda annoyed with UPS because of their terrible tracking information, but Calib power has been great through the whole thing. I'll spare you the details. The takeaway lesson is that UPS is lamesauce.

Meanwhile, as I wait, I've been working on my LED mod for the dashboard. Reading lots of circuit diagrams and tracing circuit boards. Unlike bulbs, which can mount any way in the dash, I have to figure out the correct polarity for the LEDs. But I finished that last night. Here's a crappy picture.. you can sortof see where I indicated +/- terminals to go. I'm a big believer of measure twice, cut once, so I hope to just put all these in and put the dash completely back and it'd better just work (maybe I should take a more humble approach when I get to the 144V wiring) 









Another thing I've been researching is my battery racks and how I want to mount them. I'm basically going to follow ProfessorPaul's Civic design for my battery racks. I really like the design he came up with. Mainly cause I couldn't think of any good ways to connect the racks to the odd irregularities of the engine bay. So I've come up with a rough design in my head. I think I can get most of my batteries in the front, which will give me the weight I need over the wheels to not just spin out when I attempt to embarass gassers at the stoplight. The rest I'm going to put under my CRX rear "seat." It's really only a 2-seater in the U.S., but in Japan they crammed two tiny seats back in that spot. Guess that says a lot about American's fat asses, haha.

If I pick up my batteries in time, I plan to build the racks this weekend. So that'll be a huge step done! I'm still trying to wrap up loose ends. Want to finish my vacuum brake system but honestly don't want to crawl under the car. It always seems like I get to work on the car at 9pm, at which point I don't feel like getting covered in dirt right before bed. And need to finish the dash lighting so I can put the dash back in. 

I am going to strap the batteries together with metal banding, found a screaming deal on Craigslist for the tools and the straps. Will use the same thing to hold the batteries down to the racks in case of a rollover (in which case, my inertia switch from a Ford Explorer will detect the accident and disconnect mains power). 

The plan all along has been to use a plastic underbody belly pan to reduce aero turbulence. Paul also told me about a good material to use, coroplast, and I found a place nearby that sells it in sheets. Here's a great example of it, on Paul's Honda. Different car, but same idea.


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## notailpipe (May 25, 2010)

Christmas in Colorado came early this year...









Tankyota had his job cut out for him, I had to go to the nearest freight shipment center, about an hour and a half away.









<Angels singing>









Testing a few batteries picked at random. They all agreed with the sheet provided by Calibpower. I can't say enough good things about Calibpower through the whole thing. They gave me a great price and made such a huge purchase as easy as it could be. These are 130Ah rated CALBs but they all clocked in at about 145Ah actual. 10% more range plz! 

My work gave us all a four day weekend for doing an awesome job at work. Rest assured that I used it to make a lot of progress. More on that later...


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## favguy (May 2, 2008)

I'm sooo... jealous right now!!

Congrats on the progress, and those lovely cells


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## Yabert (Feb 7, 2010)

Nice cells, but.....

Only 45 cells, Warp 9 and 1000A will give you over 250 lbs-ft , but only 125-135 peak motor HP at 2600-2800 rpm. I hope that will be enough for your performance requirement.

Anyway, really nice build thread. Continous to inform us about the build.


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## notailpipe (May 25, 2010)

Yabert said:


> Nice cells, but.....
> 
> Only 45 cells, Warp 9 and 1000A will give you over 250 lbs-ft , but only 125-135 peak motor HP at 2600-2800 rpm. I hope that will be enough for your performance requirement.
> 
> Anyway, really nice build thread. Continous to inform us about the build.


According to numerous attempts with all the performance calculators out there and a survey of similar cars to mine, I believe I'll be flyin with this setup. It is a front-wheel drive car, so it will never be as truly fast as I want it to be, but I made that compromise so that I could use it year-round in the winter as well, instead of RWD.

I calculated about 200HP peak, but I think that did ignore voltage sag. Either way, even 130HP is roughly equivalent to the gas version of the Si (sport) model. Since mine's the base model, it'll definitely be faster than it ever was.

And thanks for the kind words.  I will try to update soon.... We're leaving on vacation today so it's been hectic but I will get something out soon.


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## dtbaker (Jan 5, 2008)

notailpipe said:


> I'm basically going to follow ProfessorPaul's Civic design for my battery racks.


 I had great luck finding a set of available weldnuts on/near the shocktowers to make a rack spanning the engine bay, and also ended up chopping out the non-flat front cross-member and welding up a nice flat u-beam.... check out those sections of my site (link below). I also am very happy using polypro for battery boxes; non-conductive, no paint, never rust....



notailpipe said:


> I am going to strap the batteries together with metal banding, found a screaming deal on Craigslist for the tools and the straps.


I would recommend the PLASTIC strapping to reduce chances of shorting between cells.



notailpipe said:


> The plan all along has been to use a plastic underbody belly pan to reduce aero turbulence. Paul also told me about a good material to use, coroplast, and I found a place nearby that sells it in sheets. Here's a great example of it, on Paul's Honda. Different car, but same idea.


coroplast is ok, but just plain black 1/8" ABS sheet is wat I m going to use because it is easy to heat-form and/or glue together with ABS glue.


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## notailpipe (May 25, 2010)

dtbaker said:


> I had great luck finding a set of available weldnuts on/near the shocktowers to make a rack spanning the engine bay, and also ended up chopping out the non-flat front cross-member and welding up a nice flat u-beam.... check out those sections of my site (link below). I also am very happy using polypro for battery boxes; non-conductive, no paint, never rust....
> 
> I would recommend the PLASTIC strapping to reduce chances of shorting between cells.
> 
> coroplast is ok, but just plain black 1/8" ABS sheet is wat I m going to use because it is easy to heat-form and/or glue together with ABS glue.


Hi dtbaker, thanks for the tips. I've seen your site before and your pack build. You did a good job  Your strapping looks the same as my metal straps, but it's probably just hard to tell in the pic. Can I use the same crimps intended for metal to hold the plastic straps? It came with some funky doodads to hold them that I don't trust to hold the weight of the batteries in a rollover. I'll post a pic later of them. I might consider strapping them together for compression using the plastic straps, and then using the metal straps to hold them into their racks. We'll see. I'm fairly confident that once in those grooves, it's never going to move and short anything. One thing I like about the plastic is it will bend at the corners better though without applying too much corner pressure. I will probably round the battery corners like you did.

My racks are almost completely built (for the hood, anyway), and I also ended up using one of the strut tower mounting bolts. Actually, that holds the Zilla... oh well

Where can you get ABS 1/8" sheet? I'll probably go with whatever is cheapest. At this point I'm running down to the bottom of my budget...


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## dtbaker (Jan 5, 2008)

notailpipe said:


> Can I use the same crimps intended for metal to hold the plastic straps? It came with some funky doodads to hold them that I don't trust to hold the weight of the batteries in a rollover.


I think the crimp-thing is the same for plastic/metal banding. I just went with the plastic banding because it runs so close to the terminals and inder the bus straps I didn't want anything conductive there. I use the strapping ONLY to band the cells together, not to hold-down. I did use the edge of file to round the corner of the cells so the straps wouldn't break when I was tensioning....



notailpipe said:


> Where can you get ABS 1/8" sheet? I'll probably go with whatever is cheapest. At this point I'm running down to the bottom of my budget...


It was pretty cheap... $30-40 off the top of my head ordered from plastic supply place. I got a 4'x8' sheet of it, and the 1/4"x4x8 polypro for the boxes delivered from a place that runs up from Albuquerque to santa fe all the time so it was only $15 for delivery....


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## Jonah Templeton (Aug 29, 2011)

Wow, I just read through this thread twice. Very exciting! I'm eager to see it on the road soon.


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## greif (Jun 26, 2010)

are you using pvc pipe for the vacuum chamber? Over time it will fail! Putting pressure on it will cause microfractures in it an it will someday implode.

gary


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## dtbaker (Jan 5, 2008)

greif said:


> are you using pvc pipe for the vacuum chamber? Over time it will fail! Putting pressure on it will cause microfractures in it an it will someday implode.
> 
> gary



??

the black stuff is ABS, not PVC.... besides what proof/testing do you have showing that these units will fail cycling 20 #in-HG of vacuum? Statements like this need some data to back them up...


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## notailpipe (May 25, 2010)

Yes, it's ABS, not PVC. This stuff seems super tough. Not just super hard, but tough and durable. As in, when I drilled it and tapped out the holes, it doesn't crack as if it's brittle. It's just damn tough! So I'm not worried about it. This to me looks like the stuff they run underground, so it should be really durable.


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## notailpipe (May 25, 2010)

First step was to go through the car with a few batteries held up by hand and take measurements for theoretical plans. This went through probably literally a dozen or so iterations and variations. 

Some things I wanted to consider as I designed the racks:

-I wanted to keep the center of gravity as low as possible for preserving the car's tight handling. So the front rack that goes down by the radiator helps the most with this. I will also hang the two racks at the back of the car instead of putting in the trunk, to keep the weight low. Part of that was also another goal, which is to keep the car usable. CRX's actually had a lot of trunk space (just two seats), so I wanted to preserve that.

Welding the rack where the radiator used to go:









-CRX's were praised when they came out by critics for having a nearly perfect 50/50 weight distribution. I wanted to keep that as well. Things turned out fairly well there too. I will have 22 batteries in the engine bay, 15 in the old fuel tank space, and 8 in the spare tire well. That keeps the weight pretty even.

Old numbers (estimated):
Front --> 300lb engine, 100lbs of other "stuff"
Fuel tank --> 12 gallon tank is about 100lbs
Spare tire + jack --> roughly 60lbs

New:
Front --> 22 batteries = 220lbs + 150lb motor = 370lbs
Fuel tank --> 15 batteries = 150lbs
Spare tire --> 8 batteries = 80lbs

So you can see that though the total curb weight of the car has increased, the ratios are about the same and thus I keep the original feel of the car as close to stock as possible. If anything, I tried to cram as many as I could in the front because I also will have much more torque available than the car ever had.

Complete with straps to mount to body of car existing bolt holes. This doesn't have the loops welded on yet to hold the battery straps:









-I wanted the batteries to be easy to access for maintenance. I only had to give in here a little, of all my design constraints, in the front bay. The top row of batteries had to go on their side to go above the speedo cable but still under the hood. That puts them very close to the three over the motor. I guess that is what it is. For the most part, terminals are accessible for any future maintenance/upgrades. I will probably install the BMS on here up front though, so I don't expect much maintenance. 

The fuel tank rack will be accessible through the "storage pocket" thingie that goes behind the seats from inside the cabin. So you won't need to lower any racks out from beneath the car to get to them. I actually am trying to get the key from the dealer that lets me lock that, so people don't just open it and electrocute themselves. Similarly, the rack in the spare tire well is accessible by simply lifting up the carpet and floorboard, and the batteries will fill up the hole and let me put groceries back there.

Michelle and I put the new hood on the car loosely and checked clearances from below. I needed her skinny little arms to be able to poke and prod in there and look around!  









The good news is all the battery tops and my vacuum pump (which is mounted to the uppermost engine mount) all clear the hood by several inches. The bad news is... there is no bad news. Don't be such a pessimist. 

More to follow soon I hope.. I just realized my wife has the camera with all my new pics on it. And I also forgot my laptop charger! So hope I can post some news soon before the battery dies.


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## notailpipe (May 25, 2010)

Other news/progress/musings:



I am fairly certain I want to go with the speed sensor originally developed by Cafe Electric for the Zilla. Yes, there are ones out there that look cooler or easier to mount, but I am trying to save some money and this one is half the price! Also, it was designed specifically to work with the Zilla, so I like that. I don't think it will be too hard to adapt the mounts to work for my WarP9, even though they are originally designed to fit ADC motors.


My plan for the wiring is to use some flexible copper cable of 2/0 size. Hopefully I can get 25' on eBay, I think that will be enough. Each terminal connection, and the battery-to-battery connections, will be lightly sanded to remove surface oxidization, lightly brushed with this No-ox-id stuff that others have used (to help with conductivity and prevent oxidization/galvanization), and then to torque the provided bolts down to some uniform value. What that value _is_, I don't know yet, but I think the first I will do by hand with my experience with bolts, and then just do them all the same with my wrench.


Just waiting on a few more LEDs from eBay to arrive. I'm putting them in the car as I go. Already put my dome light in. It's way brighter, a nice crisp white, and saves power! (though not a lot, I know). I recommend if anyone does the LED conversion they get stuff cheap off eBay. Other sites, like I've used superbrightleds.com, are good but expensive. I got a few for my dash from them because I needed some specialty 360 degree stuff. After the car is registered and maybe even repainted, I am going to do a brake light swap with a custom PCB and bright LEDs. But that doesn't need to be done now.


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## notailpipe (May 25, 2010)

On the plane, I read through my Zilla manual and am feeling a lot more confident about getting the wiring right the first time through. It actually seems a lot simpler than I thought, as it answered a few questions I had about precharging the contactors. I'm now just going with a Tyco EV200 contactor, rated for 500A continuous and can handle 1000A peak (the max my controller can handle). 

I'll also use a "big red button" emergency disconnect hooked up in series (normally closed) with the low-voltage ignition wiring. Thus when I turn my car to "ON," the big red button will be closed and the Zilla will power up, but the contactor won't connect until I turn the key to "Start," after which the Zilla will close the contactor after the precharge has achieved some percentage.

Question for you folks: What kind of fuse do I want to get for the main battery pack? The Zilla manual recommends a 500A fuse for the Zilla1K, which seems odd cause it can handle twice that current. Do you typically get a fuse rated for your continuous current and it can handle short bursts? Cause I would've thought, since it's a fast-acting fuse, that if I got a 500A fuse, that it would blow if I even put 800A through it for a few seconds. Don't I want to get something like 1200A fuse, since I can handle 1000A peak? 

I don't know that I'll ever actually be needing to hit these amps, but I don't want the limiter to be the fuse. And I don't want to blow the fuse whenever I try to have some fun with the car... Thoughts?


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## notailpipe (May 25, 2010)

I am actually a little nervous to wire up my Zilla, to be honest. It is one of the only used parts I have for my car (at least, that costs a lot, got my vacuum pump from another member here and it seems to work). 

I'm just worried it's going to fizzle when I plug it in, since I got it for a really good deal off someone here. I'd hate to be rushing to finish the car by the end of the year and then plug it in and the second most expensive piece of the car needs to be fixed or replaced... 

I guess I am getting ahead of myself. But it makes me anxious since I can't really test it until the car is almost done (at least, all the batteries wired up)..


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## dtbaker (Jan 5, 2008)

notailpipe said:


> ....the battery-to-battery connections, will be lightly sanded to remove surface oxidization, lightly brushed with this No-ox-id stuff that others have used (to help with conductivity and prevent oxidization/galvanization), and then to torque the provided bolts down to some uniform value. What that value _is_, I don't know yet,



you need to be a little careful going into the copper and aluminum terminal studs as it is pretty soft stuff. I FILED the terminal tops flat as I found significant difference between terminal top and the lock nut they put on top. I decided to insert set screws and then lock washers/nuts rather than stock bolts because I was afraid of inconsistent tap depth on blind holes... I wanted full engagement on whatever threads were there.

anyway, the spec I finally got out of the battery guys was that 20Nm on a torque wrench was recommended. The key is use a short wrench and don't over-torque!


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## Yabert (Feb 7, 2010)

notailpipe said:


> Question for you folks: What kind of fuse do I want to get for the main battery pack? The Zilla manual recommends a 500A fuse for the Zilla1K, which seems odd cause it can handle twice that current. Do you typically get a fuse rated for your continuous current and it can handle short bursts? Cause I would've thought, since it's a fast-acting fuse, that if I got a 500A fuse, that it would blow if I even put 800A through it for a few seconds. Don't I want to get something like 1200A fuse, since I can handle 1000A peak?


 
You do find the spec of a 500A fuse?

They can carry 2000A for a sec. and 1000A for more than a minute.
Your Zilla can handle 1000A yes, but it's will be mainly on the motor side. You will don't suck 1000A on the battery side (fuse) for more than few second during really hard acceleration........ exept if you trolled a fifth wheel........ in a mountain....... in 5e gear....

Well, in fact, in your case, the Zilla thermal capacity will reduce current or your motor will blow before than a 500A fuse blow.


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## notailpipe (May 25, 2010)

dtbaker said:


> anyway, the spec I finally got out of the battery guys was that 20Nm on a torque wrench was recommended. The key is use a short wrench and don't over-torque!


Thanks, I'll use that number.  Was that for CALBs or TS?


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## notailpipe (May 25, 2010)

Yabert said:


> You do find the spec of a 500A fuse?
> 
> They can carry 2000A for a sec. and 1000A for more than a minute.
> Your Zilla can handle 1000A yes, but it's will be mainly on the motor side. You will don't suck 1000A on the battery side (fuse) for more than few second during really hard acceleration........ exept if you trolled a fifth wheel........ in a mountain....... in 5e gear....
> ...


If what you're saying is true, then yes I can probably get away with only a 500A fuse. Where are you finding that information in the datasheet? Whatever datasheet I found on those fast-acting fuses has little more information than dimensions. Also, people don't use a fuse on the motor side of the circuit, do they? i.e. on the controller output to motor? I've only seen one inline with the battery pack.


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## notailpipe (May 25, 2010)

Wrapping up some final loose ends on my project and would like to gather folks' input on these questions:


I am water-cooling my Zilla. It has an aluminum heatsink already mounted to the controller body. After that, my plan was to pipe coolant through a dual-120mm radiator from a high-performance computer. I've seen a few other people do that (one guy had it in his electric Beetle). The radiator will also have 2 120mm cooling fans mounted on it that will kick on at a certain temp (I already designed the thermostat circuit). Will this be sufficient? Some folks have used a transmission radiator, but I wanted to keep it as small and light as possible, since the controller is much more efficient than an engine anyway. 
I have decided to punt on motor cooling for now, but I left some space around the motor in case I want to mount a cooling shroud later. Anyone have any experience with this for a WarP9, or think I need to actively cool the motor? 
Also, what about protecting the motor from road debris and moisture? If I cover the entire underbelly with plastic, I won't have airflow over the motor. This seems like it might overheat it. But then again, with an exposed underbody there could be rocks, dust, and road mist getting into the motor and causing shorts/sparks/rust in there, right? What do do, what to do...


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## dtbaker (Jan 5, 2008)

notailpipe said:


> Thanks, I'll use that number.  Was that for CALBs or TS?


I think I got the info from CALB, but both have the same aluminum/copper terminals, and both use M8 hardware.


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## dimitri (May 16, 2008)

dtbaker said:


> anyway, the spec I finally got out of the battery guys was that 20Nm on a torque wrench was recommended. The key is use a short wrench and don't over-torque!


I'm pretty sure this depends on bolt size, which is different on different cell sizes, so you wanna be careful when making this advise and mention bolt size.

On my 160AH with M8 bolts I stopped at 15Nm since I felt that thread is about to give. I managed to strip a thread on one cell, but due to not enough thread going in, because I used larger and thicker washers. At the end I decided to completely replace original bolts and washers and bought longer bolts for better thread grip and wider and thicker washers for better surface pressure between busbar and the terminal. When selecting new bolts, make sure they don't bottom out, I think I bought 5 mm longer that original.


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## dtbaker (Jan 5, 2008)

dimitri said:


> On my 160AH with M8 bolts I stopped at 15Nm since I felt that thread is about to give.



yes, depending on size. the 100ah are also M8. 

I did NOT use included hardware, I flattened, used nolox, a drop of loctite red on allen set screws and bottomed them out in each terminal to get FULL thread engagement. Then I used external tooth lock washers and nuts with a drop of loctite blue.


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## Jimdear2 (Oct 12, 2008)

dtbaker said:


> yes, depending on size. the 100ah are also M8.
> 
> I did NOT use included hardware, I flattened, used nolox, a drop of loctite red on allen set screws and bottomed them out in each terminal to get FULL thread engagement. Then I used external tooth lock washers and nuts with a drop of loctite blue.


I have a question and a comment,

Comment:
When we built up our Headway pack I used a toothed lock washer on one side of the buss bars in our parallel pack and a direct battery to buss bar contact on he other side. During the checking we found the the sides with the toothed washer had almost 3 times the voltage drop as the side that was direct battery to buss bar contact.

Question:
Has anyone done a comparison of voltage drop between terminal and buss/cable with various lock washers e.g. toothed or split ring or wavy and various thread locking compounds when compared with a straight cable/buss to battery connection


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## dladd (Jun 1, 2011)

notailpipe said:


> [*]Also, what about protecting the motor from road debris and moisture? If I cover the entire underbelly with plastic, I won't have airflow over the motor. This seems like it might overheat it. But then again, with an exposed underbody there could be rocks, dust, and road mist getting into the motor and causing shorts/sparks/rust in there, right? What do do, what to do...
> [/LIST]


my car's not together yet so i can't actually report on how well it works, noise, or any of that... but I've decided to go with a coverband/blower setup on my Warp9. I'm sure i could have done it a little cheaper if I spent time sourcing parts, but I just bought this kit since it's already done. 

Personally I like the idea of feeding the motor with clean filtered air. Even though I know most all current EV conversions just have an open motor and run just fine...


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## Camaro (Jul 29, 2008)

notailpipe said:


> Also, what about protecting the motor from road debris and moisture? If I cover the entire underbelly with plastic, I won't have airflow over the motor. This seems like it might overheat it. But then again, with an exposed underbody there could be rocks, dust, and road mist getting into the motor and causing shorts/sparks/rust in there, right? What do do, what to do...


 
I've been thinking about the same thing. I'm going to put a plastic underbelly in. I'll leave space behind the motor for air to blow out from but I'll use filtered air from under the hood to blow into the motor.


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## Yabert (Feb 7, 2010)

notailpipe said:


> Also, people don't use a fuse on the motor side of the circuit, do they?.


No??! Put fuse on the battery side. I think it's only a french/english problem!.


Spec: http://www.discountfuse.com/v/vspfiles/downloadables/Ferraz/PDF/a30qs.pdf


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## dtbaker (Jan 5, 2008)

Jimdear2 said:


> I have a question and a comment,
> 
> Comment:
> When we built up our Headway pack I used a toothed lock washer on one side of the buss bars in our parallel pack and a direct battery to buss bar contact on he other side. During the checking we found the the sides with the toothed washer had almost 3 times the voltage drop as the side that was direct battery to buss bar contact.
> ...



well... since the bottom of the buss bars is in direct contact with the cell terminals I don't see how any difference in the conductivity of whatever washer nut or stud you use.


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## gor (Nov 25, 2009)

notailpipe said:


> First step was to go through the car with a few batteries held up by hand and take measurements for theoretical plans. This went through probably literally a dozen or so iterations and variations.
> 
> Some things I wanted to consider as I designed the racks:
> 
> ...


N., could you show more pics of recks and locatios, plese?


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## notailpipe (May 25, 2010)

dladd said:


> my car's not together yet so i can't actually report on how well it works, noise, or any of that... but I've decided to go with a coverband/blower setup on my Warp9. I'm sure i could have done it a little cheaper if I spent time sourcing parts, but I just bought this kit since it's already done.
> 
> Personally I like the idea of feeding the motor with clean filtered air. Even though I know most all current EV conversions just have an open motor and run just fine...


Yeah, I've seen that kit but I think most kits are overpriced. Might try to build something similar myself, but then again, if it's not necessary then it's just going to eat into my range...


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## notailpipe (May 25, 2010)

Progress is coming along great on C-Rex. Had the afternoon today to continue working on my battery racks and happy to say that all three racks for the front engine bay are complete (or in the still-drying-paint stage). 

Here is the unpainted lower front rack, mounted in the car. It mounts to two bolt holes where the car tow hooks are, and then the rears are supported by 1/8" x 1.5" strapping bent to mount to existing bolts. Since it had to be separated to go around the transmission, I beefed it up in the center by welding some angle between chunks. It's pretty solid. This one is lower to the ground and/or has less protection in the way from road debris, so I welded some 20ga. sheet steel to the bottom for protection. That's about the thinnest I could weld and also what I felt would help protect the batteries. Note also that the way I've done ALL the racks is that the angle iron that the batteries sit on is above rest of the mount. This leaves a little gap between the bottom of the batteries and the sheet steel. I did this so that if I (in the future) ever want to mount battery heater pads, there will be a gap for it to place. Also note: not shown but I will be lining the edges of every angle iron with some EPDM weatherstripping to give the batteries a slight vibration absorption (and also a little more gap for potential heaters). The CALB manual recommended a rubber mount to help with vibration so I think this will help.










Below is the motor battery rack. This one only holds 3 batteries, lying face down and stacked vertically. I am sharing the motor mount for several other things. In this picture, to the left is a strap that will hold the controller. It screws into a "stud" piece that is permanently welded to the body frame and I tapped out the hole. As you can see, there is very little clearance between anything. I had to shave part of the heatsink for the Zilla so that it wouldn't bump into the motor rack (the controller already has a natural curve that clears). On the right mounting bolt, you can see it's double-utilized to hold the motor rack and the strap for the front lower rack. The controller is held by a third final point as well. The top mounting hole in the heatsink/controller is bolted to another strap that is bent to mount to the bolt in the top of the shock tower (not pictured).










Okay, here is a picture of the controller mounting. Here you can see the strap I mentioned that goes to the shock absorber strut tower bolt. The controller is very firmly mounted - it ain't goin nowhere!  And I think, although things are incredibly tight, that it's in a good location. The coolant ports are mounted down, which the manual recommends. The big beefy terminals are very closeby to the motor terminals, and the heatsink is at enough angle that the turbulent heat should help it cool (you're not supposed to mount heatsink fins horizontal, vertical is best, here it's like a 45 degree angle). The controller is also in a very waterfree area, as it's not even close to the edge of the hood and fairly high. Lastly, this location is perfect, as I have a little room under the top rack (under construction in the picture) where I will mount the cooling radiator for the motor. This is otherwise wasted space, and the radiator works perfectly there because any leaks will cause coolant to only get on the transmission/CV shafts, which will be fine. Also, I might be able to shunt a little airflow passing below over it. It's so perfect!


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## notailpipe (May 25, 2010)

Also, on a side note...

I wanted to take some time to post a useful technique I use to ensure things fit perfectly the first time when locating bolt holes to drill. This may be obvious to some, helpful to others. Here is my secret... nail polish! 









What I do is simply paint the tip of the bolt I am marking a hole for with the nail polish. Most bolts have a raised lip around the circumference. This is what you want to paint, there's no point (and you'll leave an inferior mark) if you goop it all over the end. Simply dab a little around the circumference of the bolt, now hold it steady in place... use a level if desired..









Then push the bolt into the piece gently and spin it around a full circle a time or two. Quickly pull it _straight_ back, and wa-la, a perfect marking!









Nail polish is the perfect paint for this. Marker will dry quick and won't leave a mark. Other paints might be harder to apply. Nail polish is thick enough it won't run, dries slow enough that you don't have to work _too_ quickly (and can also wipe it off your workpiece after punching the center mark with an awl), and best of all, it comes in many bright and highly visible colors!  My wife threw this one out cause she didn't like it, so it was free (even better).


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## notailpipe (May 25, 2010)

My boo painting the battery racks:










Yes, that's right. Those are yellow battery racks you're seeing! Actually, Maize, to be specific. Gotta represent my alma mater with the good ol' maize and blue.. GO BLUE!  I also think it adds some fun color to my otherwise red and black engine bay.










This evening I finished the top rack in the hood. This mammoth holds ten batteries. Here it is, before primed and painted.










Dry run, just can't help myself:










Top view of just how tight the clearance is. I think this will be enough room with wire terminals on the controller. There will be about four batteries on the top rack that don't have accessible terminals because they will be covered by the motor rack batteries. I didn't have much choice here - trying to cram so many batteries into such a small space. I don't expect having to ever service these though, or not often.


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## notailpipe (May 25, 2010)

Other progress done today:

-Received the rest of my dashboard LEDs in the mail. Put those in correct polarity and tested them out. Looks great!

-Fixed the wiring on my heater safety switch, as per EVfun's comment. For those that can't find the original comment, the safety thermal switch inside those space heaters is only rated for large AC voltages, not DC. Lower DC voltages should be fine. So I rewired it so that the switch goes inline with the +12V part of the heater circuit instead.

-Got under the car and took a look at my options for mounting my vacuum reservoir. In case I forgot to mention it, I'm going to mount it in the tunnel where the exhaust pipe went. There is plenty of room and the ABS it's made out of is pretty tough stuff so road debris will be fine. It doesn't sit lower than the transmission and other drivetrain road clearance parts. 

Here's where (roughly) I'm thinking. Had to take this picture by myself so it's not precisely located...










That's an old picture. Inlet and outlet ports have been installed since then, as well as the vacuum switch and I put a vacuum gauge in too. I held the reservoir under there today and had my wife shift through all the gears and found that I needed to cut a little bit off. That's okay - I think it might have been borderline too massive anyway for such a small car. It used to be 3 feet of pipe! And it was a good thing I did anyway: I cut off one end of it to mount a new cap and turns out my vacuum gauge had too much ABS glue when I put it in, I could see shining my flashlight in that it had covered the air port with glue!  So I remounted that and - after being sure all the ports on one end were glued properly - glued the end cap back on. I haven't mounted it yet, but it will mount there without interfering with the shift linkage.


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## notailpipe (May 25, 2010)

gor said:


> N., could you show more pics of recks and locatios, plese?


Are these pictures better, or was there something in particular you'd like me to take a picture of?


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## favguy (May 2, 2008)

I'm sure you don't want to hear this, but you really need to consider reworking your cell mounting if your picture is showing the final orientation you intend to use. You'll drastically reduce lifespan if they are not mounted upright with the vent to the top!


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## dimitri (May 16, 2008)

favguy said:


> I'm sure you don't want to hear this, but you really need to consider reworking your cell mounting if your picture is showing the final orientation you intend to use. You'll drastically reduce lifespan if they are not mounted upright with the vent to the top!


Do you have any data supporting this statement? I have been told by cell manufacturers that any orientation except upside down is OK.


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## favguy (May 2, 2008)

I know they can be mounted in any orientation, but having read up on as much opinion as possible, the consenus seems to be that any orientation other than upright will shorten lifespan, just concerned that a fellow ev'er doesn't see the most expensive part of the conversion fail prematurely!

Which manufacturer has told you this is OK?


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## Ziggythewiz (May 16, 2010)

I thought they had to be vertical or on edge (not laid flat) to allow proper wicking of the electrolyte. Laying flat would cause the upper plates to sit dry.

This was for TS, but I would expect calb to be similar.


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## notailpipe (May 25, 2010)

favguy said:


> I'm sure you don't want to hear this, but you really need to consider reworking your cell mounting if your picture is showing the final orientation you intend to use. You'll drastically reduce lifespan if they are not mounted upright with the vent to the top!


Thank you for mentioning this. I'm not sure yet if you're right, but I appreciate you not wanting me to be unhappy with the final build.

Yes, if you have evidence from the manufacturers I would love to hear it. My understanding was also that they can be mounted any orientation. It's hard to base on DIYers opinions/consensus since it might be based on rumor. For example, in Ziggythewiz's comment, either the cells over my motor or the ones by the firewall would be bad, but no one can say for certain.

If anyone has any documentation from the battery manufacturers, that'd be great... thanks again though


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## notailpipe (May 25, 2010)

Anyone have data on a pack with on-edge cells or laid-flat cells lasting a while in their builds?


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## dimitri (May 16, 2008)

My info came from HiPower, which uses the same manufacturing process as all other large prismatics. It should not be difficult to ask Keegan at CalibPower since he is likely to have direct support channel with the factory.

My understanding is that electrolyte is vacuum sealed inside the cell and should not redistribute under any orientation, unless the cell is damaged by overcharge, which turns electrolyte into gas, which breaks the seal and vents thru the safety vent.

There was a story about very early production of TS cells, years ago, which had liquid inside, probably for thermal conduction, which corroded one of the terminals if cell was horizontal. I believe all that was fixed since then.


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## notailpipe (May 25, 2010)

dimitri said:


> It should not be difficult to ask Keegan at CalibPower


I just sent Keegan an email, let's hope he can provide some answers, if at the very least for CALB.


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## gor (Nov 25, 2009)

notailpipe said:


> Are these pictures better, or was there something in particular you'd like me to take a picture of?


- they perfect : )))
- yeapp, rear locations


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## Ziggythewiz (May 16, 2010)

notailpipe said:


> For example, in Ziggythewiz's comment, either the cells over my motor or the ones by the firewall would be bad, but no one can say for certain.


This is the only info I have on the matter, which would indicate the over motor ones should be rotated to be like the rest:










http://www.elmoto.net/showthread.php?694-Thundersky-Battery-Orientation


I don't know how authoritative this info is, but personally I would try to make them all the same anyway. From the pic it doesn't look like it would be hard to do, but I don't know what else you have to stick in there.


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## notailpipe (May 25, 2010)

gor said:


> - they perfect : )))
> - yeapp, rear locations


Haven't quite gotten to the rear yet. This whole battery orientation has thrown me for a bit of a loop, since all the rear racks (one where fuel tank used to be and one where spare tire well used to be) would be mounted the same way as my firewall pack. Which _may_ be okay, but I want to hear from CALB officially...


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## notailpipe (May 25, 2010)

Ziggythewiz said:


> This is the only info I have on the matter, which would indicate the over motor ones should be rotated to be like the rest:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Thanks Ziggy. A couple thoughts:
1. Turns out, I probably _do_ have the room to make the motor rack consistent with the firewall rack, as three cell thicknesses is thinner than a cell width. It will bring total height about a half inch taller, but this is probably okay as I left a little margin there. Will look at this tonight..
2. Thanks for the link. I don't know if CALB are constructed internally the same, but isn't there a small possibility that the plates are run 90 degrees to your picture, as shown in the top view? Since it's shown here for ThunderSky, there's a small possibility. If so, it would be safe still to have them standing but then the 2nd and 3rd pictures would swap and now the firewall mount in my build would be bad..

I guess there's no way to know until Keegan or someone else from CALB gets back to me. But it makes sense what you're saying. I'm quite relieved that this still might work. A lot of hours went into all that measuring and welding!


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## gor (Nov 25, 2009)

notailpipe said:


> Haven't quite gotten to the rear yet. This whole battery orientation has thrown me for a bit of a loop, since all the rear racks (one where fuel tank used to be and one where spare tire well used to be) would be mounted the same way as my firewall pack. Which _may_ be okay, but I want to hear from CALB officially...


only section above motor; firewall section- ok, like mid. position on Zig's picture above

what about front bumper pack?

btw. N., keeping COG as low as possible and to the center- would your front bumper rack made car too front heavy and increase polar momentum (mom. of inertia)?


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## gor (Nov 25, 2009)

- in case of low clearance - to position cells not vertically, but under slope (like 45 degree, diagonally) on the edge ... not best, but could also be an option....


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## notailpipe (May 25, 2010)

Just got off the phone with Calibpower and they also recommend it stand straight up. They said also definitely not to put it on the larger flat surface. He wouldn't guarantee the same lifetimes on putting it on edge, like my firewall rack. He said the manufacturer recommends terminals to the sky, but he mentioned some other customers are going on two years with them mounted sitting on the narrow edge.

I'm wondering if it's just a cover-their-ass kinda thing, or what. 

I know it's a long shot, but anyone know of any CALB builds that have lasted a long time and had some narrow-edge mounted cells?


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## notailpipe (May 25, 2010)

gor said:


> only section above motor; firewall section- ok, like mid. position on Zig's picture above
> 
> what about front bumper pack?
> 
> btw. N., keeping COG as low as possible and to the center- would your front bumper rack made car too front heavy and increase polar momentum (mom. of inertia)?


I'm not sure it's as okay as ThunderSky says. They said the internal makeup of the electrolyte is "complicated," but again, it seems like they'd have no reason not to just make sheets like every battery since the 1800s...

No, I think the "radiator" rack is okay, there's quite a bit of weight in a filled radiator. If anything, those are mounted the best as they are the lowest. But it's more than anything a matter of practicality. You have to fit the batteries somewhere. Plus my memory of my physics would tell me that the center of mass of all the batteries combined (and motor) dictates the center of mass for all of it. So, since you can't fit them all in one single point, it's gotta spread out some


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## notailpipe (May 25, 2010)

gor said:


> - in case of low clearance - to position cells not vertically, but under slope (like 45 degree, diagonally) on the edge ... not best, but could also be an option....


Thanks for the idea, but I think it might be too complicated to weld, not to mention that the bounding box of the cross-section now got bigger, meaning takes more area.

I'm going to swap at least the three over the motor to be like TS says to do it. Then the big question is whether I make my rear suspended racks straight up or on edge like the firewall mount... <sigh> decisions decisions. I might want to hedge my bets and do as many as I can straight up vertical, but now the batteries will probably have to come into the car somewhat in the trunk and back cargo pocket. So it'll be hard to make it look OEM like that. I definitely don't want to lower their ground clearance either.

Or do I mount them all on their narrow edge as I was planning to do, but then I don't want to find out 36 of my 45 cells are dying prematurely after only a few years down the line. Esp. after investing in BMS to protect their lifetimes!

Really could use more feedback from the community. Thoughts appreciated, and thanks for keeping the discussion going. You guys rule.


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## dtbaker (Jan 5, 2008)

favguy said:


> I'm sure you don't want to hear this, but you really need to consider reworking your cell mounting if your picture is showing the final orientation you intend to use. You'll drastically reduce lifespan if they are not mounted upright with the vent to the top!



I have never seen any evidence showing that cells must be upright.... but his layout looks VERY tight with the ones stacked in front of the first set. basically making it impossible to check cell voltages unless monitoring wires are run to each bus bar.


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## notailpipe (May 25, 2010)

dtbaker said:


> I have never seen any evidence showing that cells must be upright.... but his layout looks VERY tight with the ones stacked in front of the first set. basically making it impossible to check cell voltages unless monitoring wires are run to each bus bar.


I'm not too worried about that. Since I'm using the mini-BMS, there sorta _is_ a monitoring wire routed to each terminal. See this picture mirrored below of a generic miniBMS build:










Basically, from the top I will be able to poke a voltmeter down in there and get two adjacent terminal voltages from the top without needing access to the bottom. Each spade terminal gives you the "far" voltage from the cell adjacent.

Also, with this other change mentioned, I'll be rotating the orientation of the ones over the motor, and I'll save about a 1/2" to 3/4" which will give me a slightly larger gap. So it shouldn't be a problem.


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## dladd (Jun 1, 2011)

notailpipe said:


> I know it's a long shot, but anyone know of any CALB builds that have lasted a long time and had some narrow-edge mounted cells?


well that's sort of the issue here, these types of cells just have not been around long enough to have long term data yet! You are the cutting edge and will be providing that data for others to follow. Thanks!


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## notailpipe (May 25, 2010)

dladd said:


> well that's sort of the issue here, these types of cells just have not been around long enough to have long term data yet! You are the cutting edge and will be providing that data for others to follow. Thanks!


Yeah, guess it appears that way.

After stewing about it yesterday, my conclusions:

1. Took a look at the CALB manual and it's really not that clear on how they can/can't be mounted. Unlike the TS manual which clearly shows one as okay, in this one they just say anything other than terminals-to-sky is "not recommended." Huge megabomb dropped. Then on to the next bullet in the manual... haha

2. I confirmed that the batteries over the motor can be flipped to be on their narrow edge. I'll most likely do this as it's minimal rework to the rack. I also confirmed that straight up they are obviously higher than the hood skyline, so that's out.

3. The remaining batteries in the rear I will try to mount terminals-to-sky. Yes, it's not as ideal for fitment, but about half the batteries are back there and I don't want to risk that much of my pack dying prematurely. I think instead of half in the fuel tank and half in the spare well, I might be able to fit all of them where the fuel tank is. To not hang them lower than the rest of the ground clearance, they will probably poke into the car somewhat. My wife thinks she can mod some carpeting to match from Joann's and make it still work inside the car with still looking OEM. There is a little "storage box" in the back seat that we'll have to mount a little higher.

4. The trunk ones I can't really mount vertically inside the spare tire well. They would have to come up too high and the little board that goes back there for putting your groceries on would be high and useless. So I'll try to fit them all over the fuel tank area. Another advantage to this, which I really like, is more weight towards the center/front of the car. This is great because anything in the tire well was just counteracting weight I'm trying to get on my front tires for traction so in the end this will be better for handling/fun driving.

5. It's a compromise solution, but the ten batteries against the firewall just can't go vertically. Maybe they could with another day of fabrication, but I just don't have the time, and I wouldn't be able to fit ten anymore because of the speedometer cable anyway. My logic here is if I don't finish in time to qualify for the tax credit, I lose potentially $7,500. Versus I keep them how it is, and worst case 13 of my 45 batteries die sooner because they are on their edges. The tax credit buys my entire pack, so obviously it's more important to get it than a _possible_ premature lifetime of some of the batteries. 

6. Lastly, like you say, we are all pioneers here. Having a mix of the battery orientations will help me to know in several years if it made a difference or not. Now, I'd rather I had only one battery not in the control group, but such is life.


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## notailpipe (May 25, 2010)

Great news. Another DIYer in my city has wire lug crimpers that he's going to let me borrow!  This saves me lots of time cause otherwise I was going to go the manual hammer way.

As for crimps and such, I've scoured the EVDL and concluded (if anyone is interested):
1. To use crimps only, no solder. The solder supposedly hardens the fine wires and makes them brittle so they could crack in vibrations. Also, don't use any goop stuff like No-Ox or something on there, they said over time it dried up and increased in resistance. NOTE: I'm talking about not putting it in between the wire and the terminal before crimping. It _is_ still recommended to use an anti-oxidizing compound on the bolt connection itself.
2. That a manual hammer crimper is just as good as using the lever crimper tool. It just doesn't look as pretty. Pete did that work to verify.
3. Use high-quality heatshrink over the crimp when finished, using the type with adhesive inside so it melts all over it and keeps out air/moisture. 
4. No one has concluded if thicker terminals are worth the extra money. My thoughts are it is probably overengineering. I do think it's worth it to get the tinned ones though, so they don't corrode like bare copper will.

I'd also like to get some of those rubber boots that cover the terminals for safety when working on it and so I can show off the car with the hood open... but they're so damn expensive! So not sure what I'll do there. Maybe just cover with sheet of plexiglass. Anyone know where to get those little rubber/PVC terminal booties for cheap?


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## dtbaker (Jan 5, 2008)

notailpipe said:


> 2. I confirmed that the batteries over the motor can be flipped to be on their narrow edge. I'll most likely do this as it's minimal rework to the rack. I also confirmed that straight up they are obviously higher than the hood skyline, so that's out.


my guess is that the heat wafting up from the motor might have a larger effect on battery life than orientation. You may want to think about a heat shield between. You DON"T want the battery cases to get too warm and soft, you definitely don't want batteries over about 120 deg F ever, and you want to avoid having batteries at DIFFERENT temps if possibly to avoid imbalance in charge/discharge characteristics.

You CAN modify hood if you just need an inch or two.  I had to do that for my original build w/ lead.

You may want to more seriously consider cutting a big gaping hole under your rear seat and jamming cells in there.... worked for me.




notailpipe said:


> My logic here is if I don't finish in time to qualify for the tax credit, I lose potentially $7,500.


federal tax credit on a conversion is only 10% of actual parts cost... Where are you getting $7500 ?


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## dtbaker (Jan 5, 2008)

notailpipe said:


> Just got off the phone with Calibpower and they also recommend it stand straight up.


the only mechanical reason for this I can see is that it would allow marginally better natural convection for cooling when the batteries get warm.... but that's not an issue unless you are doing extended pulls at 200+amps for 20 minutes or more.


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## notailpipe (May 25, 2010)

dtbaker said:


> my guess is that the heat wafting up from the motor might have a larger effect on battery life than orientation. You may want to think about a heat shield between. You DON"T want the battery cases to get too warm and soft, you definitely don't want batteries over about 120 deg F ever, and you want to avoid having batteries at DIFFERENT temps if possibly to avoid imbalance in charge/discharge characteristics.
> 
> You CAN modify hood if you just need an inch or two.  I had to do that for my original build w/ lead.
> 
> ...


Haha, I thought of you last night as I pictured (only for a second) putting in a hood scoop. Just can't do it to my beautiful hood.. to me the CRX is like the best looking car ever. Thanks for the idea though. I might consider just putting those three in the fuel tank area also, like you said. The 30lbs weight differential isn't as big a deal since I moved all the weight from the spare tire well to the middle. And it would make it an even 26 back there, so I could make two symmetric and shorter racks of 13.

Federal credit = 10% capped at $1500
Colorado credit = 85% capped at $6000


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## notailpipe (May 25, 2010)

Might be nice idea to get rid of the three over the motor anyway. (I'm an engineer and love tradeoffs):

-Instead of two more aluminum plates and straps for only three batteries, I'd be putting them in just another row that already has end plates for it. Aluminum is expensive! 
-Like you said, avoid the heat issue for these guys
-I can use the existing rack still, to mount other stuff or leave room for motor cooling. So I like thinking it wasn't wasted work.


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## dtbaker (Jan 5, 2008)

notailpipe said:


> Colorado credit = 85% capped at $6000



wow.... we've got nuthin from the state on DIY conversions....


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## notailpipe (May 25, 2010)

I must say, Colorado is an awesome state for alternative energy tax credits. It woulda been a lot harder to do it without it..


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## Ziggythewiz (May 16, 2010)

Any rules on how long you have to live there or how long you keep the car?

Can I get a PO Box and say I'm a resident like Hilary?


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## dtbaker (Jan 5, 2008)

Ziggythewiz said:


> Any rules on how long you have to live there or how long you keep the car?
> 
> Can I get a PO Box and say I'm a resident like Hilary?



while claiming part-time residency to gain benefits is tempting, it would ALSO mean that you'd have to pay/file CO state income tax and if you are a part-time resident you may get prorated benefits.


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## notailpipe (May 25, 2010)

Started the planning for the fuel tank battery rack tonight. Mostly a lot of hemming and hawing and being amazed at how ridiculously close clearances would be in any situation.. haha

So hopefully before I cut into my car (scariest part of the project so far) and then someone says "you idiot, you just ruined everything," thought I'd post my plans now and get some feedback first. 

Here's what I'm working with. The "rear seat" aka pocket for who knows what:









I'm not really sure what you could fit in here. "Honey, have you seen my suitcase?" ... "Did you check C-Rex's storage compartment?"

...maybe cassette tapes? Dozens and dozens of them! It would fit the era.









Okay, I don't hate this thing that much. But I think psychologically what's happening is I've learned I have to get rid of it and so I'm emotionally detaching from it to begin the healing process. And it's all because of this bad boy right here:









I'm really glad I checked on this, because I thought for the longest time that under that protective cover lurked a useless fuel line that would meet a short, hopefully painful, and sparky demise at the mercy of my grinding wheel. Surprise! It's a brake line! Obviously plans changed when I realized that. 

To avoid the brake line, I'm going to have to mount the battery rack a few inches forward than I had planned on. Not a big deal from the bottom (I'm still only cutting through thin sheet steel floorplate, nothing structurally rigid). But the largest problem is that the batteries would now come forward of the little storage pocket thing. Henceforth... peace out, homes.

Maybe the guys over at crxcommunity.com would want this. Free to a good home. Loves long walks on the beach, cassette tapes, and the smell of gas fumes (who doesn't): 









So, what will be in its stead? I don't want to see any of the floor/cuts/rack, but I entertained the thought of showing off my dreamy new batteries, you know, like a high-end computer case complete with plexiglass and random flashing LEDs... right? Right? Well, my wife put the kabosh down on that. I usually trust her aesthetic views, and this time she was also right that it goes against my mantra of trying to make the car look as OEM as possible. Maybe I can convince people that a bigass bunch of batteries was stock JDM? 

So instead what's going to go here (not til the car is registered with the state) is going to be a black plastic box that covers the batteries, provides a support structure that will protect the batteries, and attempt to look somewhat original. The box also protects people and my puppy Chubbs from falling through something flimsy and getting electrocuted.









I am thinking something like this. Imagine the lines drawn here define the bounding box of the cover (gettin a little crazy with the MS Paint tonight, I guess it's getting late). The final look will either be black plastic, or covered in a carpeting that matches the interior, or some mix. I might even be able to reuse the original carpet, we'll see. Maybe I'll hang onto it then, JIC.









So, what do you guys think of the plan? Anything I've overlooked? I'll probably try to start welding the rack Friday. I'm getting faster so maybe I'll have it done by Saturday afternoon and can consider that the day-of-reckoning (cutting into the car). 

Thoughts appreciated in advance.


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## notailpipe (May 25, 2010)

Oh yeah, specifically: see how the floor where I'll be cutting through isn't a smooth flat plain? I'm going to have the racks hanging from vertical angle iron pieces and then those will have a connector piece that supports it on the car. 

Here's a I-really-want-to-go-to-bed drawing that hopefully just illustrates what I mean:









I'm just not sure if a couple bolts or welds on those points of contact will be enough to support the rack securely. I mean, part of me thinks that well even just gravity probably would hold it down, so a couple firm points of contact should be fine. The angle iron pieces on the top will have their flat edge "flaring out" such that it is sitting on the body floor plane.

Let me know what you guys think.


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## PatricioIN (Jun 13, 2008)

cutting and re routing a brake line is really no big deal. Go the an auto parts store and tell them you need some brake line (take a piece of the old one so you get the right diameter.) $2 tube cutter for clean and straight lines, $10 worth of new brake line and you're good to go. You just screw it on the cut end with fittings that make flares (comes with the new brake line.) Oh, get a $4 tube bender to make the new line any contour you want! Some new brake fluid and bleed the line..... I, uh, accidentally cut a brake line when I cut out my trunk!  Here are a couple of pics of my batt box btw...


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## Salty9 (Jul 13, 2009)

I think you are right to be concerned about torque caused by that pendant battery box. I would add bracing.

Brake lines might not be hard to do but you want to make absolutely sure that they are done right. I would consider buying preformed ones if possible.


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## dtbaker (Jan 5, 2008)

I would suggest a few 'tabs' on all sides. I used 'rivet-nuts' to provide mount points I could bolt into.... I couldn't weld between 1/8" rack and thin body steel with my cheapo stick welder. I also went around the edges afterwards with 'great stuff' foam to seal it up and prevent dust and noise from getting in. oooh, and re-upolstered with some left-over astroturf for the ultimate 'green' statement; but it wouldn't fit your OEM look.


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## notailpipe (May 25, 2010)

PatricioIN said:


> cutting and re routing a brake line is really no big deal.


Hey Patrick.  Your design was one of the first I read when I started reading here.

Well, I could probably overcome my hesitancy of working on brakes and my fear that one day I'll just effortlessly smash into someone cause my brakes went out due to work I did myself there. I know, irrational considering all the other stuff us DIYers take on. AND... I could also overcome my strong resistance to wanting to bleed brakes, but I'm just not sure it buys me a whole lot.

It's not very obvious in the photo, but the brake line is traveling from the passenger side to the driver's side and in the middle it makes a random little jog towards the front, then back again. It's not obvious why they shifted it, and that makes me a little nervous, too. When I look at the storage pocket, it goes over it just fine, and would have without the bend too. Maybe there was some piece associated with the fuel pump that is now gone and I forgot about? 

So, if I assume the jog is now unnecessary, the easiest would be to cut it out and splice a straight connection in. (BTW, can you point me to more info on how the flaring is done, like is that a tool that flares the two cut ends or what? I couldn't find anything on Autozone's website). Removing the jog would save about 2, maybe 3 inches. But I'd still have to mess with hacks on the storage pocket so it still looks normal. But that might be enough, I'd have to measure again.

The other option would be to bend my own lines and put it somewhere way out the way. That also might work. In that scenario (which I studied well since I thought that was a fuel line and I thought I _would_ be in that scenario) was still going to be a very tight fit to get the batteries to work the box and, in that situation, not be too far to the back of the car. So in that boat I would be doing all this brake bending/mending/bleeding and still might not have an OEM look.. so I'm not sure. 

That's why I sorta lean towards, if I might have a junky-looking cover when I'm done trying to make it work anyway, doing a custom box. But it's a good idea you had and one I'll need to think about some more. Please let me know what you know about the brake line stuff, thanks.


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## notailpipe (May 25, 2010)

Salty9 said:


> I think you are right to be concerned about torque caused by that pendant battery box. I would add bracing.
> 
> Brake lines might not be hard to do but you want to make absolutely sure that they are done right. I would consider buying preformed ones if possible.


I didn't draw anything in my picture cause I'm not sure it's necessary yet, but I thought of maybe adding some angle iron just between the front edge of the box and some other mount on the car. Sounds like you think that's a good idea too.


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## notailpipe (May 25, 2010)

dtbaker said:


> I would suggest a few 'tabs' on all sides. I used 'rivet-nuts' to provide mount points I could bolt into....


Hey Dan, what are these rivet nuts you speak of? Do you have a picture or is it in one of your pictures? I didn't see anything - guessing it's on the underbody view.



dtbaker said:


> noise from getting in.


Oh my gosh, I didn't even think about noise. All this time I've been thinking about how my underbody belly pan will protect components from rain/mud/snow, and yet I didn't about noise (or now that I say that, cold, either)! I have always kept in mind that in the future I might want to put home insulation around the battery rack walls, but that was more to keep them warm in the winter than for noise, though it might help some. I'm going to have to think about this a bunch now. I like how you made yours totally enclosed with some sort of plastic. Can you point me to where you talk about making your rear box again? I know I read it forever ago.

I'm always talking to my wife about how one reason the Chevy Volt took so long to come out is they had a whole team that was devoted to the problem of "this car is _too_ quiet, how do we fix all those squeaks and sounds you never heard cause of the motor?!" So now our impression of EVs will be all the squeaks and creaks of a 20-year-old car PLUS the road and wind noise from that rear battery box!! 



dtbaker said:


> oooh, and re-upolstered with some left-over astroturf for the ultimate 'green' statement; but it wouldn't fit your OEM look.


Haha, I think I'll let you corner that market.


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## Earthwindwater (May 2, 2011)

Nice car. The dark red looks good with the dark lights and silver rims. IMO...

Looking good!


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## PatricioIN (Jun 13, 2008)

notailpipe said:


> Hey Patrick.  Your design was one of the first I read when I started reading here.
> 
> Well, I could probably overcome my hesitancy of working on brakes and my fear that one day I'll just effortlessly smash into someone cause my brakes went out due to work I did myself there. I know, irrational considering all the other stuff us DIYers take on. AND... I could also overcome my strong resistance to wanting to bleed brakes, but I'm just not sure it buys me a whole lot.
> 
> ...



Any new brake line you buy will have a flare on the ends, and there's a splice kit that goes on the end of your old line that flares the end of the cut piece when you tighten it to the new line. I couldn't find it online, but this is a fairly common repair. I would also suggest something like these for a clean professional job:

http://www.jegs.com/i/JEGS/555/80086/10002/-1?CT=999

http://www.google.com/products/cata...a=X&ei=fxyYTvOhF-fh0QGd4bGrBA&ved=0CFAQ8wIwAw

You should be able to find a tube bender that has multiple sized grooves for less than $10 and a mini pipe cutter for less than $10 too.. I just did a quick search. Good luck, I'm definitely following any build that is using lithium!


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## Earthwindwater (May 2, 2011)

Question. Is the box you built aluminum? Did you have some one weld that for you? That welder you have doesn't work with aluminum, does it? Thought you had to have a tig for that. If you did, that is awesome!


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## dtbaker (Jan 5, 2008)

notailpipe said:


> Hey Dan, what are these rivet nuts you speak of? Do you have a picture or is it in one of your pictures? I didn't see anything - guessing it's on the underbody view.


I found that these things come in all different grades rated for different thickness material and pullout strength. The heavy duty ones are pretty hard to install as they want to spin around rather than compress... the medium duty ones are good enough I'd say. I have a bunch of detail pictures in my 'gallery' that re not on the summary page for the rear rack... starting around [here].




notailpipe said:


> I like how you made yours totally enclosed with some sort of plastic. Can you point me to where you talk about making your rear box again? I know I read it forever ago.


I used polyprop plastic because my original build was lead-acid. I screwed panels to my frame, then heat-welded the seams... I wanted to protect the frame from battery acid, so that could be skipped for a Li build. If you step thru the gallery link above you can see a step-by-step.



notailpipe said:


> "this car is _too_ quiet, how do we fix all those squeaks and sounds you never heard cause of the motor?!"


the difference between good/bad pavement is amazing w.r.t road noise.... and scarey quiet driving on smooth concrete in parking garages! I also heard aging CV joints clicking that were previously masked by a hole in the exhaust.


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## notailpipe (May 25, 2010)

Earthwindwater said:


> Nice car. The dark red looks good with the dark lights and silver rims. IMO...
> 
> Looking good!


Thanks  

I think after the paint job I will make a summary thread over at crxcommunity.com, show it off there. They might appreciate the car, but I have a feeling they're going to hate the EV part, haha. All about VTEC swaps over there...


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## notailpipe (May 25, 2010)

dtbaker said:


> I found that these things come in all different grades rated for different thickness material and pullout strength. The heavy duty ones are pretty hard to install as they want to spin around rather than compress... the medium duty ones are good enough I'd say. I have a bunch of detail pictures in my 'gallery' that re not on the summary page for the rear rack... starting around [here].
> 
> I used polyprop plastic because my original build was lead-acid. I screwed panels to my frame, then heat-welded the seams... I wanted to protect the frame from battery acid, so that could be skipped for a Li build. If you step thru the gallery link above you can see a step-by-step.


Dan, this is great stuff! I'm going to have to read this later when I get a chance, there's a lot of detail on your image gallery. Love it. I might do something similar with plastic to keep out the road noise, although without needing acid protection, maybe some sort of dense MDF board or something lined with sound absorption matting might be better for eliminating the road noise. Not sure where I'd get that but I know it exists. Then Great Stuff the seal once it's mounted.

I am thinking more seriously about shifting the brake line. My wife helped me soundboard it out this morning. I have a picture that will explain my new thoughts, will try to post that over my lunch break...


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## notailpipe (May 25, 2010)

Sidenote: anyone know the details of where a computer radiator like the one Netgain sells could be mounted? I'm not sure if it needs to have airflow over it or if it can be mounted in a sealed environment (since it has fans). 

Or if I were to mount one by the road, if the fans need to be waterproof or not, or what orientation (flat or vertical) it needs to be mounted in.

Anybody know much about heat transfer stuff???


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## skooler (Mar 26, 2011)

notailpipe said:


> Sidenote: anyone know the details of where a computer radiator like the one Netgain sells could be mounted? I'm not sure if it needs to have airflow over it or if it can be mounted in a sealed environment (since it has fans).
> 
> Or if I were to mount one by the road, if the fans need to be waterproof or not, or what orientation (flat or vertical) it needs to be mounted in.
> 
> Anybody know much about heat transfer stuff???


 
What product did you have in mind? I assume you mean a PC watercooling system of some description? 

My experience of these things in PCs is that as long as there is plenty of air nearby that has a low ambient temperature, it will work reasonably well (even in a large sealed box, I have seen them installed in small cupboards with no air flow).

My thinking in an EV is that it will only ever get hot when moving so you might want to think about mounting it behind the front grill and scrapping the fans altogether. Just a thought.

Cheers,

Mike


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## notailpipe (May 25, 2010)

skooler said:


> My thinking in an EV is that it will only ever get hot when moving so you might want to think about mounting it behind the front grill and scrapping the fans altogether. Just a thought.
> 
> Cheers,
> 
> Mike


I've thought about using the original little underbody scoop that feeds my air filter for the original ICE. But I'm not sure it lends itself well to fitting the radiator behind it. Maybe I can take my bumper off tonight and check out the situation. 

In the case I shunt air in through the front grill, I don't think the radiator would be low so can probably use non-waterproof fans. It's still up in the air whether they'd be needed, but maybe I'll assume I need them when figuring out my space requirements. 

Thanks for your input.


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## skooler (Mar 26, 2011)

notailpipe said:


> I've thought about using the original little underbody scoop that feeds my air filter for the original ICE. But I'm not sure it lends itself well to fitting the radiator behind it. Maybe I can take my bumper off tonight and check out the situation.
> 
> In the case I shunt air in through the front grill, I don't think the radiator would be low so can probably use non-waterproof fans. It's still up in the air whether they'd be needed, but maybe I'll assume I need them when figuring out my space requirements.
> 
> Thanks for your input.


You'll probably find the original air intake has a much higher CFM rate than the fans on the back of the PC case.

You could always put a centrifugal blower on the intake to increase CFMs if its needed, abo £30 over here so say $50?


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## notailpipe (May 25, 2010)

Alright, so obviously I've been thinking about this a lot the last couple days. I have been thinking about this as a quickest way to done problem as opposed to the optimal solution. That's okay in some cases, but such a big decision like this should probably be what's best for the final result (caveat: as long as it doesn't prevent me from finishing on time).

So, although modding the brake lines requires great care and caution, and will take time to do and bleed, I realized this morning that the alternate of building a custom plastic box to cover the batteries will also take some time - getting it to fit perfectly and also look good won't be trivial. And with that option, it's _guaranteed_ to not look original. At least by reusing the storage pocket, there is some (possibly small) chance I can reuse most of it and make it look good. So that's the avenue I will start to pursue.

Here is the deal with the back mount. I took a top view picture this morning to make things clearer and color coded the mount points for both options. 










Option A is that I mount it farther back. This will fit on the bottom and on the top it gives the advantage of increasing my odds as much as possible for having the batteries work with the original seat cover. It also leaves two of the original seat cover mounting holes (seen near arrow), but this isn't super important. It has the potential disadvantage of maybe being too close to what Dan called the suspension bulkhead. I obviously don't want C-Rex to fold in half.  But I don't know.. my intuition tells me there is plenty of material there and the strength is in the fold (like an I-beam). I'd be cutting about halfway up the side of one of the folds, so most of the mass would remain there, as well as the fold on the bottom side would be unaffected.

Option B is to scoot it forward and clear that suspension point completely. I'll still have to cut the brake line and bleed it, just less bending than option A. This isn't enough justification alone to do this option, as the downside of this option is that I might not be able to use the seat cover and make it look good. 

If there is concern that option A is too close structurally to that fold in the car, then I can look more into scooting it just past the brake line and try to determine again what the final battery cover situation would look like.

As far as mounting the rack to the car, in the front I could probablyjust bolt those straight down as the surface is pretty flat. In the back I may need to weld some sort of raising mast like Dan's car.

Any suggestions?


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## notailpipe (May 25, 2010)

One last thought and I'll stop spamming everybody and just wait for some feedback 

The current width of the battery box is 15" and is based on the assumption that I'll have essentially a rack for each row of CALBs and then weld them together. Here is a little picture to explain:










I'm wondering if I could save some room (for previous-post dilemma) by making just a single box instead and getting rid of the two back-to-back angles in the middle. The battery rows would then be touching each other. I'd support them structurally by welding some 1/8" steel strap on the floor (where the angle used to hold them, and then two cross-sectional angle irons running perpendicular to that, but along the bottom. 

This would hurt ground clearance a touch cause of the angle iron going down now instead of up, but might protect the batteries even better. This would save more than just the 1/4" (two 1/8" angles), because there's a little slop space around the batteries for the curvature of angle, since it's rolled metal. So it might save 1/2" total I'd guess.

It's something...


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## oldschoolhondathunder (Sep 29, 2011)

Wow, great progress so far! Thanks for posting so much detail. This will be useful if I decide to bite the bullet and build one for myself. Until then, I'll just live vicariously through your posts!

FTR, I prefer the option of rerouting the brake lines to allow the CALBs to line up in a little better (Option A). You could weld extension peaces from the box outwards to the car to gain more support. Someone else had that idea previously on this thread too.


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## notailpipe (May 25, 2010)

Okay, it's decided!

I took some more measurements and I am fairly confident in my plan. Here it is:


I will cut the brake line and do a straight modification to just take that kink out. I will mount the battery box as close to the line as it can go. I took another look at that suspension crossbeam and where I will be cutting into it, it's almost to the bottom of the inverted-U (think cross-section), so it won't be affecting the strength of the car. Yay!
I will do my 2nd revision of the battery rack, that saves the 3/8" of room. I think this is better anyway, I like the additional protection it provides the batteries on the bottom. But I think that 3/8-1/2" I save will be the gamechanger, surprisingly enough (sometimes I feel like this car was predestined to be an EV with how things work out) 
The remaining fitment possibly may boil down to raising the seat cover with some 1/2" nylon risers or something.

Time to blast The Social Network soundtrack and fire up the welder!!!


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## EVfun (Mar 14, 2010)

notailpipe said:


> One last thought and I'll stop spamming everybody and just wait for some feedback
> 
> The current width of the battery box is 15" and is based on the assumption that I'll have essentially a rack for each row of CALBs and then weld them together. Here is a little picture to explain:
> 
> ...


Yes, by all means do that. My recommendation is to weld in a flat strip about 1.5 inches wide and the same thickness as the angle. Then weld in a piece of 1 inch square tube under that across the bottom of the rack. Even .062 wall square tube is quite stiff against sag and will easily support Lithium.

I did an L shaped pack that way where I could only easily attach at the left corner of the top of the L, the lower corners of the bottom of the L, and the upper corner of the bottom of the L. The upper left corner of the L didn't have an attach point. A piece of 1 inch square tube from the bottom of the L to the top right corner kept that area from sagging - and that was some time ago when I was installing lead (Optimas.) Since then I have done more and more of my work with square tubing -- pretty much anywhere it is appropriate.


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## dtbaker (Jan 5, 2008)

Earthwindwater said:


> Question. Is the box you built aluminum?


Box, or rails, are fine with aluminum or painted steel, but I decided to line with non-conductive plastic despite the shiny look of diamond-plate..... just got nervous thinking about a cable or bus bar touching, or dropping a wrench and having problems...


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## notailpipe (May 25, 2010)

Productive night last night. To begin, my wiring supplies came in from EvolveElectrics. If I haven't plugged them before, they are great. Justin is really helpful. And they're also in Colorado so next day shipping for me 

Decided to go with the more-expensive Magna (not knockoff) lugs instead of cheapies from eBay. I'd hate to design my car for some low voltage drop and then have all the current dropping over poor-quality lugs. Could it be overengineered? Yes. But I think it was the right choice. I also got the good heatshrink that has the adhesive inside to keep out moisture forever (the thing that looks like sticks of dynamite in the background). I still can't believe it will shrink down that much, but Justin said it would so we'll see..










Then I started working on the rack. That decision I was confident was a good one, and could still give someone online time to tell me to "stop the saw!" before it's too late. I hope to start cutting today, we'll see how far I get. So I built as much of the rear rack as I could. Today I'm going to put 1.5" x 1/8" steel strap down the middle (as in my drawing) but I ran out of it so I need to go back to the metal yard first this morning. That sort of thing always kills productivity.. Here is is almost done (at least the bottom), including the battery tiedown loops.










Lastly, I finally got around to mounting my vacuum reservoir in the previous exhaust pipe channel under the car. This was kindof a pain, but I feel like I learned a lot through it all. The biggest thing I learned about was the existence of these rivet nuts! I almost left ACE hardware without them, cause they called them something else. They called them "threadserts" or "blind hole nuts." Anyway, so after reading about Dan's experience on his image gallery trying to keep them to not spin when installing them, I got the little $8 tool that came with them. When I got home I realized the guy handed me the wrong sized tool for them! So I ended up making my own makeshift one, which was basically just the bolt and nuts method previously discussed here on the forum. Anyway, didn't get any pictures of that part but was very thankful others online had done such a good job writing up the "poor man's method." 

Top view of where the port-end of the vacuum reservoir sticks out. There is the vacuum switch that tells the pump when to go on/off, the inlet port, outlet port, and a vacuum gauge so I can adjust my switch settings and diagnose any problems.










At least, that was the thought when I put the gauge in - I was thinking it'd be mounted in a more visible location. That previous pic will soon be covered with batteries and you won't be able to see anything. It's not quite as handy, but you can see it if you lie on the ground and look through the wheelwell.










And finally, the view from beneath. In the front I've got a threadsert on an existing blind hole, and the other end of the strap goes under a steering rail bolt. In the back, there was a bolt I put back after removing the muffler that worked great, and another threadsert custom hole. Used that galvanized strapping for ductwork and around the top and bottom of the pipe I electrical-taped some rubber weatherstripping I got for this job. The rubber was a great idea (Dan's idea?) because it will help quiet any rattles between the tube and the car, and on the strap side it let me tighten the straps real good and it kinda cuts into the rubber. I.e. that ain't goin' nowhere! 










I'll hook up the vacuum hose and the control electronics another time. Time for breakfast and to continue work on the back rack!


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## notailpipe (May 25, 2010)

EVfun said:


> Since then I have done more and more of my work with square tubing -- pretty much anywhere it is appropriate.


Do you get as much strength per weight with square tubing as with angle? Maybe it's the same, since it's sortof like two angles put together. (So maybe it is actually a slightly better ratio). I've already got angle welded on there, but thanks for the tip!


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## dtbaker (Jan 5, 2008)

excellent progress! I am trying to clear a garage bay so I can START my second. 

the heat-shrink DOES shrink right down... you have to hve a nice hot heat gun. I used my plastic welding gun, but the hot paint-strippers work well too. works best if you have the heat shield that puts the hot air all around at the same time, or hold it close to the workbench so that the hot ir bounces around and on the back.


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## notailpipe (May 25, 2010)

dtbaker said:


> you have to hve a nice hot heat gun. I used my plastic welding gun, but the hot paint-strippers work well too. works best if you have the heat shield that puts the hot air all around at the same time, or hold it close to the workbench so that the hot ir bounces around and on the back.


Shoot, really? I thought I could just use a lighter like I do for the smaller electrical heatshrink. Would a hairdryer work? I don't have a heat gun. The plastic welding gun sounds intriguing... can you point me to more on that? As Alton Brown calls them, I'm not too interested in uni-taskers, and it sounded like you used your plastic welding gun also to join the seams on your battery box. Where can I get one and for how much?


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## dtbaker (Jan 5, 2008)

notailpipe said:


> Shoot, really? I thought I could just use a lighter like I do for the smaller electrical heatshrink. Would a hairdryer work?


no.... has to be hotter than hairdryer gets. You could use a propane torch perhaps, but be careful not to burn it.




notailpipe said:


> I don't have a heat gun. The plastic welding gun sounds intriguing... sounded like you used your plastic welding gun also to join the seams on your battery box. Where can I get one and for how much?


I found it on ebay... the good ones are very expensive (like several hundred dollars). The cheaper ones don't have as settable temps and might not last as long, but are less than $100 at hardware stores. The high-temp heat guns are only about $30, but don't have welding tips. If you want to use for 'welding' battery boxes and custom component boxes be sure to get the tip that has the feeder hole for the rod material matching your sheets. I got a good one (Liester) because I plan on making more boxes in more cars. 

I looked for a long time at various enclosures for the things I wanted dry, like the main contactor, potbox, heater relay and all the ones I found were not really the right size or didn't have clear covers.... so I really liked laying out all the 'bits' on a custom sheet/box/lid and pre-wiring on the workbench. I can pull the whole rack relatively quickly if I need to get to the motor, tranny, etc. and it stiffens up the front end since it crosses the bay basically between shock towers.


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## Ziggythewiz (May 16, 2010)

notailpipe said:


> Shoot, really? I thought I could just use a lighter like I do for the smaller electrical heatshrink. Would a hairdryer work?


I would not use a lighter. A hair dryer works on regular heat shrink, but not the big stuff that has to really shrink.

I did mine with a cheapo soldering iron, just rolled the barrel around till everything was snug, but now I just bought a heat gun for $9 on sale:








http://www.harborfreight.com/1500-watt-dual-temperature-heat-gun-572-1112-96289.html


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## notailpipe (May 25, 2010)

dtbaker said:


> excellent progress! I am trying to clear a garage bay so I can START my second.


Cool, what's the next project gonna be? Did your wife get jealous of your EV and want you to convert her car?


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## gor (Nov 25, 2009)

notailpipe said:


> Cool, what's the next project gonna be? Did your wife get jealous of your EV and want you to convert her car?


 lucky... my only wants my heat gun (or her hear drying tool whatewer) back ... : (((


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## dtbaker (Jan 5, 2008)

notailpipe said:


> Cool, what's the next project gonna be? Did your wife get jealous of your EV and want you to convert her car?


my wife is in the 'puts up with my hobby' category.  I can build her an EV, but it has to have a nice paint job, or she won't drive it....


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## Ellrot (May 17, 2010)

dtbaker said:


> my wife is in the 'puts up with my hobby' category.  I can build her an EV, but it has to have a nice paint job, or she won't drive it....


This makes me think of one great reason why Electric cars don't sell so well in the U.K after the huge price tag, they are all UGGGGGLLLLLYYYY, have shocking paint colours to choose from, which are about as stylish as an OAP on his quick trip to the shops in his dressing gown and slippers!! 

One big reason I love Notailpipe's CRX, it's gonna look smart!


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## favguy (May 2, 2008)

Well.. we have the leaf now, which is very smart and at £25K, long term ownership costs should be much lower than a comparable new ICE car over a 10 year period at an average mileage, but if you change every 3 years or so, probably not as good as a diesel if it's about cost.

I'm with you on the rest of them though, cheap, tacky, ugly & slow plastic rubbish at a new price that would get you a nice economical modern supermini. That's why I'm building my own!

Anyway, back to the CRX...


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## Ellrot (May 17, 2010)

Just food for thought... My Donor car is a Honda civic coupé 99, so I'm gonna be using a similiar parts to this CRX, the difference with mine is, my car currently runs 200hp with a turbo that spools up at 3500rpm, and I can rev upto 8000rpm. 

I think it's a shame to for my gear box to be loosing out on the rest of the gearbox

I'm thinking of using a Warp9 coz they rev up to 5500 rpm so I'm not loosing out on the revs. If I put a fixed gear onto my warp 9 (before the transmission) with a ratio 0f 1:1.45 could this allow me to run up to 8000rpm and would that also reduce the amount of instantaneous full torque you'd receive in 1st gear?


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## Yabert (Feb 7, 2010)

Ellrot said:


> I'm thinking of using a Warp9 coz they rev up to 5500 rpm so I'm not loosing out on the revs.


Just to inform you. 

A Warp 9 have his peak power around 3000 rpm at 144v and the power remaining at 5500 rpm will be only 1/4 of the peak power.... So you will never hit 5500 rpm at high speed because you will don't have the power to go at this speed.
Try to find high speed AC motor or maybe a Kostov motor at high voltage to have peak power at high rpm.


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## Ellrot (May 17, 2010)

Oh right, thanks for that. I've had a look for Kostov's I've only found one stating it spins upto 5,500rpm, which again just leads me to my original question. 

If a fixed gear ratio is placed before the transmission allowing you to rev up to 8000rpm, would this give you more miles/volt and range?? 

Having a set of 18" or 19" Alloys would also help with top speed, range and drive-ablity, not to mention make it look down with the kids! I currently have a set of 17's on my Honda, and they fit so nicely inside the arches, as though they were made for them. 19's would need a lil arch work though...


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## Yabert (Feb 7, 2010)

Ellrot said:


> If a fixed gear ratio is placed before the transmission allowing you to rev up to 8000rpm, would this give you more miles/volt and range??


 
No, In fact, you will just lost a bit more efficiency in this gear reduction.

I think you will need to try to understand this formula: HP = torque x rpm / 5252.
200 hp at 8000 rpm = 131 lbs-ft
A warp 9 can generate double this torque, so if you can spin the motor at 4000 rpm and maintain his torque (high voltage), you will also have 200 hp.
I think the kostov motor are rated at nominal speed. 

But wait a minute... It's the Notailpipe thread!!!..


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## drgrieve (Apr 14, 2011)

From Kostov FAQ

We have performed tests up to 220V which show that as long as rpm are below 6000 (11") and 7000 (9") the motors work fine. With the currently available controllers it is very difficult to ensure the above limits are not exceeded. Therefore we in no way encourage applying more than the rated voltage to the motor's terminals.

Also the newer Warp 9 is rated up to 192V, so RPMs will be closer to 4000 for peak power. (Note I haven't read of an actual implementation of this).


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## favguy (May 2, 2008)

Hey Ellrot,

Just realised who you are  , have just returned your e-mail with some thoughts, I'm sure this lot on here will point you in the right direction 

Paul


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## notailpipe (May 25, 2010)

Hi Ellrot, thanks for the compliment. Excited to see your Honda build as well. Hondas make great cars and great conversions!
p.s. in the future, please start a new thread elsewhere for off-topic posts, thanks

So, I haven't updated in a couple days. Been feeling kinda sick and haven't had the energy to post anything.  I'll try to post an update soon, maybe today over lunch...


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## notailpipe (May 25, 2010)

Alright, finally time for an update! 

I added the strapping to my rear rack and made sure that all the batteries fit in both dimensions. Man, this thing is heavy with just half filled! Am definitely going to need some angle irons or something going forwards/back to brace it for fast stopping.










I took off the front bumper to gather some more data. 









First thing was, I got a coupla horns out of a Lexus at a junkyard a while back. I really love the way my wife's IS250 sounds. The notes of her horn are so dissonant that you want to go to confession after cutting her off, you're so sorry. I also figured it'd be a safety thing to have a horn louder than mouse farts. But, alas, I had wasted my money on the horns and they only beeped a few times before drawing a constant 5A and no longer working.. So back to my old horns. I also wanted to take a look at this little box that used to "ram" air up from below into my air filter. I was looking at is a potential air scoop for my radiator for cooling the controller. Well, after seeing this picture of the hole that fed my anemic 1.5L, I decided to punt on this option:








By now I'm thinking I have really wasted my time taking off that bumper.

I did hook up my computer power supply though and test out my new LED turn lights that perfectly match the LED halo parking lights.









And I also tested all my LEDs in the dashboard, they all worked correct and looked really crisp. That green light in this picture isn't on, it's just illuminated by the nearby lights but it's not actually on in real life. I added that to indicate to the driver that the car is on, since there's no engine running to listen to. I think it came out pretty nice!


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## notailpipe (May 25, 2010)

Now that the front racks are completely painted and complete, I wanted to install them in the car. Once their in there, I can use their locations to plan where the motor/controller wiring will go, where the controller cooling hoses will go, and the vacuum hoses. So far it's been a lot of systems MOUNTING but I'd really love to get a system COMPLETE... i.e. with wiring and tubing and everything.. working!

I heard that these CALBs should be mounted on something sortof soft/rubbery to help dampen road vibrations. I couldn't duplicate that rumor in the CALB manual that came with the batteries, but I didn't look that hard, probably because it seems like a good idea. In the weatherstripping section at Home Depot I found this high-density EPDM rubber that worked perfectly.










Closeup shot of it installed:










Others have asked me for more pictures of the racks installed in the car. Here they are. 

Radiator rack installed:









The motor mount now holds the radiator rack strap in the front, and a bar for 2 of the 3 Zilla mounts in the rear. So I needed to make a third tiny little spacer of 1/8" metal for the middle bolt, for the "motor" battery rack. 

There is no longer going to be batteries over the motor because of the heat issue that someone pointed out. So I thought of a great idea.. I'll mount the charger there! That way, when the car is being driven and the motor is hot, the charger isn't in use. And when the car is charging the motor will be cooling down. Genius! <breaks arm patting self on back>










Young inquisitive minds (EV drivers of the future) want to know, my nephews in this case, "why is it gonna be electric?" "how does electric work?" and "you forgot to put the wheels back on it!" among other cute things.









Side view:









Front view:


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## Ziggythewiz (May 16, 2010)

Lookin good! Be sure to test the lights in the sun as well as in the dark.


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## favguy (May 2, 2008)

I hate to be a killjoy, but as no one else has noticed it, I'll give you the bad news! It looks like you have all your racking bolted together and to the motor mount, the gearbox and also to several points on the cars body structure! 

you absolutely have to change this! The motor and transmission will move about quite a bit on thier flexible mountings under load, as they should, but because you have the racking bolted to them along with several fixed mounts at the body sheet metal points you'll cause huge damage to either the racking, body mount points or both when you drive the car.

You'll also get massive vibration constantly as the drivetrain is no longer isolated via rubber mounts from the body! 

Sorry to be such a pain, but you need to isolate the racking completely from the motor/transmission to allow the drivetrain unhindered movement.

Paul


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## notailpipe (May 25, 2010)

favguy said:


> I very much hope you are going to tell me I'm wrong here, but it looks like you have your racking bolted all together and to the motor mount, the gearbox and also to several points on the cars body structure!
> 
> If this is the case, you absolutely must change it! The motor and transmission will move about quite a bit on the mountings under load, as they should, but because you also have several fixed mounts at the body sheet metal points you'll cause huge damage to either the racking, body mount points or both.
> 
> ...


Mmm, I'm not sure I agree with all of that. I appreciate the concern, but I think there's maybe only one point on the mounts I should change. 

Starting with the radiator rack. 3 of the 4 mounts are on the car body. The last is on the motor mount. The only way that mount should be wanting to move is with torsional rotation. I could see it moving a little bit, but the way the strapping is I intended it to have a little bit of flexibility in it. I think that part might be alright, but I'll think about if there's an easy way to bend the strap over to the car body and install a rivet nut there instead.

As far as motor vibration transferring to the body of the car, it's an electric motor so shouldn't there be a LOT less vibration than a combustion engine (if it's like any other electric motor I've met, there's almost zero vibration, but I haven't actually run one of these motors before).

Next the motor rack. Even though I'm not putting batteries here, I will still use it to mount other stuff and don't want it to be a problem. But that one is a rigid connection in between the transmission and the end of the motor. Those two pieces are very solidly connected through the adapter plate and can be thought of as one solid unit. So that one is okay as it's like adding a solid mount to a single unit.

The firewall mount would be the most concerning me to what you're saying. I can see rotational torque of the motor wanting the transmission to twist a little straight towards the front and rear of the car (nothing side to side though). So this might want to rise and lower the front of the firewall rack. But the way it's held in the back is two hanging straps and one bent strap that it's sitting on. So one solution would be to remove the middle connection in the rear, the strap it sits on, as that one won't give to up and down motions. But since the other two strap bolts in the rear are small, I'm not sure I trust all the weight to them alone. Perhaps the better solution would be to keep all three mounts in the rear and try to avoid the brace in the front that connects to the transmission altogether.

Let's say I did that. Looking from the front of the car, I could hold the front left corner of the firewall rack to the body of the car by somehow mounting to the left transmission mount (not to the transmission part, but the part affixed to the body). But what about on the right side? I'd have that front-right corner floating and no good connections nearby. That's one reason the transmission mount was so appealing. 

So, any ideas? 

<SIGH> Now that you mention it, the Zilla mount itself might have a problem too. The Zilla is held to a strap where one end connects to the body (a hole I tapped into a permanent welded mount) and the other end to the motor mount. If the motor really is twisting a lot, which it probably will with all that torque, it'll really be pulling on the body.  So I need to figure that part out too.

Okay, after typing it all out, I agree with you. Man, this sucks. I need to change essentially three of the mounting positions. I think mounting these batteries is turning into my least favorite part of the conversion... so many edits!

Thanks again for pointing this out. It didn't really make my day, but better than having the problems later when they're harder to fix.


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## favguy (May 2, 2008)

Hi,
I know It's a pain in the arse, and you'll be loath to redo the racking, but believe me, you absolutely cannot have racking bolted to both the drivetrain and fixed body metalwork simultaniously at any point, even a movement of a few millimetres from the drivetrain will stress crack or bend the rack or mount points in short order and you absolutely will get vibration through the body all the time, even if not from the motor, back up the system from the wheels, through the half shafts, transmission & then bypassing the mounts through your racking to the body!

Believe me when you are accelerating the car, changing gear, or going over slight undulations even on a good road surface I assure you your motor and trans. are moving about plenty, you just can't see it from the drivers seat!

Sorry, I know you don't want to hear this! 

PS, You are quite correct about the rack above the motor bieng OK, as long as you remove the front strap holding it to the lower front rack


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## notailpipe (May 25, 2010)

favguy said:


> Believe me when you are accelerating the car, changing gear, or going over slight undulations even on a good road surface I assure you your motor and trans. are moving about plenty, you just can't see it from the drivers seat!
> 
> Sorry, I know you don't want to hear this!


No, no, you're right. You just would not believe how averse I am to ripping up that work... but in the end I will do what's right for the project. I'll only do what's _easiest_ if the tradeoffs are benign. It always sucks being the bearer of bad news, but believe me I will be thanking you later (and I thank you now) 

Do you have any ideas what to mount that front-right corner of the firewall rack to? It's floating out in space far from the body and the controller may be in the way.


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## notailpipe (May 25, 2010)

Another question: Let's say I keep the motor mount and mount my charger to that. Do you see the vibrations from that hurting the charger in any way? Maybe I can mount the charger on rubber bushings or something. Would be nice to at least reuse something I've made. And better to get feedback first before I mount the charger!


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## favguy (May 2, 2008)

For the front lower mount, why don't you extend the angle iron to the body in the same or a similar way to what you've done on the L/Hand side? (viewed from the front) 

You may be fine putting the controller on the rack above the motor, but personally I wouldn't, mounting to the car body gives the cushion of the suspension, you'll get a lot movement atop the motor.

It's hard to say what I'd do to change things without bieng "on site" so to speak, but you could rework the racks, extending the transverse angle iron to the engine compartment sides and should be able to find suitable mountings there, maybe with a little reinforcement and or welding in captive nuts etc..

Have you looked at others solutions in the evalbum for your model for ideas?


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## notailpipe (May 25, 2010)

The front lower mount is not a problem, I will bend the strap there towards the body, just like you say. I was referring to the front of the firewall rack.

I based my battery rack's largely on ProfessorPaul's, though not exactly like he did. Here is his firewall rack and the mounts on his left-hand side are to the body. Honda must've moved brake hose in between the model years, because my brake lines get in the way to do what he did. 










I'll think about this some more tonight, when I get a chance to work on it again. I may have to move the controller to get that front-right edge of the firewall rack to be held, but let's hope not.

One last thing, when you said "You may be fine putting the controller on the rack above the motor, but personally I wouldn't, mounting to the car body gives the cushion of the suspension, you'll get a lot movement atop the motor." did you mean to say controller? Cause I had mentioned putting the charger there. Wondering if you think a charger would have the same problems. The way I see it, the body has shocks to absorb road vibrations. Then on top of that there are the rubber mounts for the motor, so it should be bouncing a little less, but then rotating a bit because of torque. I planned on mounting the charger to rubber isolation mounts to help a little with that too.


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## dtbaker (Jan 5, 2008)

too bad nobody noticed this before....

If the charger is mounted above the motor, probably not a problem heat wise, but you want to remember that motor is going to be a big chunk over metal up around 120-150 deg F after driving around under load for a while.

I would absolutely second that the motor/transmission needs to attempt to utilize original rubber mounts if at all possible, and be isolated from everything else. The motor twists more than you might think under torque, hitting bumps, sudden braking, etc., this is why my 'middle rack' spans the engine bay and uses weld nuts I found on shock towers.

Its hard to tell from photos where your available mount points are.... but I would take a close look in the areas around both shocktowers and see if you can span the whole bay.

I also didn't want the vacuum pump on the same support as any vibration sensitive equipment, or the firewall that would act as a drumhead!


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## dtbaker (Jan 5, 2008)

the controller, charger, and dc-dc all have lots of little electronics best protected from vibration if possible.

the motor/tranny WILL have *some* vibration, especially at higher rpm, and the vacuum pump will have (lots more) vibration that you don't want shared with any of the components stuffed with electronics.


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## dimitri (May 16, 2008)

Keeping rubber mounts for motor/tranny is a must! Do not make any rigid mounts between motor/tranny and the body, its a really bad idea!

When I started my build I also thought that electric motor will have much less vibration, but more torque, so I used stiff "racing" mounts made from polyurethane. It seemed logical at the time. Boy, do I regret it now 

Sure, there is very little vibration from the motor, but noticeable vibration from the tranny and also road vibration coming from wheels and CV joins back to tranny and via stiff mounts back to the body. This is causing uncomfortable low frequency rumble , hard to describe, but certainly something I would want to get rid of. Don't get me wrong, the car is quieter than it was with ICE, but not as quiet as I expected EV to be and I believe its due to stiff motor/tranny mounts.

If I ever take my drivetrain apart again, first thing I will do is replace all those stupid racing mounts with OEM rubber ones.


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## notailpipe (May 25, 2010)

I think some folks might be misunderstanding my intentions. I did indeed keep the rubber mounts for the motor and transmission, and plan on keeping them for all the reasons stated here. I did, however, have some connections between the body and those drivetrain parts, which in retrospect is a huge DUH.

Anyway, worked on this quite a bit last night. Once I got out of "do I really have to change this?" mode and into execution mode, I kinda banged things out pretty quick.

Radiator rack was the easiest. As was suggested, I bent that strap so it would mount straight to the body. It fits perfectly, hole is drilled, and the strap has been re-primed and repainted where the bending flaked all the paint off. My only thing left on that mount now is I got the wrong threadsert tool size and I can't compress the threadsert/rivet nut without it spinning. Tried the little bolt/nut trick again but it didn't work this time. I'll drop by ACE today...










For the middle motor rack, I decided to just scrap it altogether. Though it's not a body/drivetrain hybrid mount, it's a drivetrain mount and I had concern that all the vibration and shocks from the road would rattle my poor charger to death. Instead, I will extend floating arms from the firewall rack to put the charger on. There's not a lot of weight so I think the leverage should be trivial. I don't actually have the charger yet, so I think I'll just build generic angle shelves and figure out later how to mount the charger to that.

On to the controller mount and firewall rack...

So the firewall rack I didn't get anything done on it last night but did figure out how to mount it. There is a little shelf near the front left corner that I can mount a strap to. For the front right, I will weld two angle irons together at funky angles and bolt that near the strut tower bolt. Not looking forward to that trickiness, but I believe I can do it and it will hold sufficient weight.

Now, for the controller, one of the three mounts was to the motor and this was probably the worst mount of all, because when the motor twists, it would've put all that strain on my poor widdle controller. I don't even want to think of what would happen. But I liked the controller location and so decided it was less work to just find another way to modify that third mount rather than start anew. Here is the result:










I bent a piece of strap at roughly 90 degrees and cut it to the proper length. Holding it from below, it goes against the original mount strap that was there and hangs below a perfectly flat and convenient part of the body of the car. I then used a scribe and my trusty nail polish to mark where it should go. It was really tricky to mark this with the controller still there, but I guess I got lucky or have my trick down pat. The old mount is welded to the 90 degree piece, an unused part cut out, and the whole unit welded to the car. In the picture you can see the three mount points. One is the obvious new piece, the other is the other weld to the car that is tapped, on the left side, and the third is a strap that hangs over the yellow-ey strut tower bolt.

A view of the weld from below. Really claustrophobic and scary welding under my car with all that high voltage just inches from my (masked) face. I had the extension cord wrapped around my foot and my weight on it so that if any freak accident happened (since I couldn't reach the power switch), a kick of my foot would unplug the whole welder. I figured my first reaction to anything bad would be to sorta spasm and kick my legs.  Anyway, everything went without a hitch - that thing ain't goin' nowhere!










Had to prime and paint it on the car, got the bottom too to protect from rust. (No picture of it painted, but I made it black).










And that's as far as I got. Tonight I think I can finish changing the mounts for the firewall rack and FINALLY be done with the stupid front!!! 

Favguy or others, see any other problems while I'm in there?


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## dimitri (May 16, 2008)

When making and placing cables between controller and the motor, keep in mind possible relative motion between motor and controller, so keep a little slack, but not too much, since motor current loop must be as short as possible. Also, run those 2 cables side by side or even better with some twisting, to minimize EMI created in the motor loop. Pay utmost attention to motor cables, they carry huge currents and also will vibrate as drivetrain moves relative to body/controller. Make sure there is no rubbing anywhere, so it doesn't cut thru insulation over time. 
Do you plan for 2/0 or 4/0 motor cables? I did 2/0 , but if I was to do it again I would go for 4/0 for motor cables, while using 2/0 for battery cables.


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## Arlo (Dec 27, 2009)

Awesome build. I just picked up a 1988 crx si 2 days ago and I will be making it electric in a few months or a year!


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## notailpipe (May 25, 2010)

Spent the weekend mostly redoing my front racks. Now each piece is completely mounted to the body and shares no mounts with the drivetrain pieces. There are also several mm of clearance for any drivetrain parts to be able to shift/rotate. 

Here are my new mounts for the firewall rack. I made sortof "wings" that reach up and mount to the shock tower mounts. I also made two little shelves that come out and will hold the charger, when I get it. I spaced them perfectly for mounting an Elcon PFC-2500. 











Here it is installed in the car. Used 1/4" strip of wood in the front of the rack to lift the battery terminals a bit farther from the metal, then installed the rubber lining they'll sit in. Had to grind a little bit out of the wings to make clearance for the battery posts (got a little tunnel-visioned working on it I guess). The wings are still plenty strong to hold.


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## notailpipe (May 25, 2010)

However, the real thing I wanted to get posted is a potential problem that I need some help with. I wired up the motor last night really quick just to see it spin with an old car battery I have lying around. As in, I'm using really thin 14 AWG wire to hook it up. But I figure that should be fine for a 12V run. 

It's reverse wired, for CWDE, but I've got it hooked up according to the manual. 

When I hook it to the battery, nothing happens. Now, the battery only had 10.2V in it. It's my old CRX battery before I had to replace it (when it was a gasser). I've been saving it just to burn out on this motor test and then get rid of it. But I woulda thought even 10V would move it or _something_! 

So I hooked up my little Mastech bench power supply. This thing ran my vacuum pump earlier last night with no problem, was supplying about 3A at 12.5V. So I hooked it up to the motor and it hits the current-limited setting, drawing about 5A and the voltage has dropped down to 2V. 

Is this right? Shouldn't 12V or even 10V move the motor somewhat? I'm not sure if it's just the battery is too weak and so is the power supply? Like, yes it should be more than 2V when it hits 5A. Should I hook up my pickup's battery to it and see? Or is my wiring possibly wrong and I'll just destroy my battery? When I measure the resistance of the motor as what the battery would see, it's only about 2 ohms. I'm not a motor guy, but that seemed a bit low to me. But maybe once it's spinning it raises.

If anyone could help me diagnose, that would be great. The motor I bought new so I'd be real surprised if it was broken. It's starting to feel like I'm not going to make my deadline with all these setbacks. Kinda frustrating. Much appreciated.


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## notailpipe (May 25, 2010)

Arlo said:


> Awesome build. I just picked up a 1988 crx si 2 days ago and I will be making it electric in a few months or a year!


Very cool.  The world always needs more electric CRXs in it, if you ask me. Can't wait to read your build when you get started! Ping me if you have any questions on it. Your CRX is 1st gen, mine is 2nd, but still a lot of similarities.


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## Yabert (Feb 7, 2010)

notailpipe said:


> When I hook it to the battery, nothing happens.
> Shouldn't 12V or even 10V move the motor somewhat? I'm not sure if it's just the battery is too weak and so is the power supply? .


 
That seem normal to me.

My 11" motor need around 30A to turn my transmission on neutral at 13v. And it probably need a lot more amps for a fraction of sec to simply start the rotation of the motor.
I also try the motor on 6v (2x headway 10Ah) at the forklift shop and that was fine. Low speed, but fine.

So try to find a good 12v battery or at least 500w power supply.


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## rwaudio (May 22, 2008)

When I first started burn in on my 11hv I wasn't able to start it moving with a 12v 20A supply it would simply go into overload (it's a cheap crappy supply) I was able to start it moving with a 12v nicad drill battery then keep it going with the 20A supply. As Yabert mentioned the start up current is pretty high for these motors, if anything try to use the small supply to charge your 12v battery or a regular charger if you have one, then use a charger or power supply to maintain current if you want to run the motor for any length of time.

When doing A/C testing it took around 250-300 watts to idle the motor at 1000rpm, and 1200-1500 watts to run the A/C at 1000rpm. There were higher peaks when starting the motor or first turning on the A/C though. Running the motor at around 5000rpm also took 1200-1500 watts, at no load.


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## notailpipe (May 25, 2010)

Okay, that makes sense then that my little 5A supply couldn't handle it (and my nearly-dead battery as well). I thought I'd ask before someone said "oh no, you should see about 150ohms end-to-end resistance on the motor" and meanwhile my truck battery is now fried, and I lost all my radio presets to boot. 

I'll try that tonight.


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## Arlo (Dec 27, 2009)

notailpipe said:


> Very cool.  The world always needs more electric CRXs in it, if you ask me. Can't wait to read your build when you get started! Ping me if you have any questions on it. Your CRX is 1st gen, mine is 2nd, but still a lot of similarities.


 Actualy mines the first year of the second gen. I will be getting it on the road for now and I plan how to build a 4wd independent motor monster!


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## notailpipe (May 25, 2010)

Didn't get a chance to try the motor last night, been taking care of a sick wife.  Hopefully I can get to that tonight. I saw someone's online video of their motor adapter wobbling/misaligned so now I'm a little concerned I didn't test this a long time ago, before I even put it in the car. The rest of the stuff from CanEV was top-notch so hopefully it's all good to go..

The other night I hooked up the tubing and the check valves for my vacuum system. I've got the original check valve that went to the brake booster. From there it goes on to my ABS reservoir in the exhaust tunnel. Then from there it goes into another check valve, and then on to the pump. 










I hooked up the motor directly to my bench power supply (not using the vacuum switch yet) and was able to pump it down to about 18" Hg. That's probably about the best I can do. I'm at 6000ft elevation and I've heard of other high-altitude conversions having this same limit. 

The pump is a little louder than I'd like. Good thing it's not always on, but it will always be on when I brake to a stop and all road noise is gone... so for all sakes and purposes it will always sound on! Anyway, the vacuum slowly leaks out. After a couple minutes that 18 drops down to about 5" Hg. Is this typical? I obviously don't expect a perfect system, but I thought the vacuum might last a little longer. At this point even cruising for several minutes and not braking at all will still result in the pump going on. It's partly a noise concern, but mostly a range concern. Don't want that pump going on if I can help it. Have you guys had a similar experience?


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## notailpipe (May 25, 2010)

Posting out of order... last weekend I finally had the bottom drop out beneath me. Of the back seat, that is. I didn't make a whole science out of where to put it and alignment. I cut the brake lines and just made sure that the battery rack would end up as far back as it could be to still make the brake clearance repair later less painful.










My angle grinder made short work of the floor. It's pretty thin so it just cuts through like a hot knife through.. my floor. Peace out, homes!










Placing the rack on top of paint cans and hardwood flooring spacers, trying to gauge how high it should be. I've kindof run into a potential problem. Well, less of a problem and more of a decision. The rear box began as a sort of hanging rack, but it has evolved into more of a box. See picture below:










I added angle iron on top (with enough clearance for batteries and all connectors to easily fit underneath) to allow weight to sit on top. The box will probably be topped with a clear plexiglass, and then the rear seat/pocket thingie will sit straight on top of that. So I needed angle iron for protection. In fact, I may also add angle at the top in the perpendicular direction as well, making it a true box. 

So here is the decision: If I make the bottom of the battery box to be _above_ the bottom plane of the rest of the car underbody, then the top of the box definitely causes a problem with the trim and seat pocket thingie. The way the car works, cause it's a hatchback, is there's the seat pocket that sits on top of this. But then there's also a rear folding divider that is either up (making the cargo area covered so your valuables aren't just clearly visible) or you can fold it down to sit flush on top of the seat thing, giving you extra storage room. When we're traveling and my puppy is riding back there, we like to fold it forward cause she gets anxious and climbs over it anyway. So having the battery box that high causes me tons of trim/seat headaches in not only making it not look totally ghetto but also actually work so that it actually folds down. Because at that height it wouldn't fold down flat anymore, which kinda defeats the purpose.

The other option of course is to lower the battery box. If I lower the box a couple inches such that the trim on top all looks OEM and works correctly, I've now reduced my ground clearance for the batteries. It still works out that the battery fronts are still never exposed directly to any road debris. The part of the box that would be below the underbody plane would be protected by the front surface of the angle iron. But it would just plain be lower nonetheless. I'm not sure if I'll be bumping into railroad tracks or anything. The car used to bottom out on our driveway with the original lowering springs that were on the car, but it was always the engine's oilpan hitting, never anything in the rear. Since then I've put performance springs that raised it back 2" from there, but 1" lower than stock (for a subtly aggressive stance ) 

So... I dunno. It's not like there is a right or wrong amount of ground clearance. It's just a matter of what potential risk there is to the batteries, and if that event should happen, if my angle iron is sufficient to protect them. I will also be putting a plastic underbelly to protect them from smaller debris that would move around on the road. I've seen some people with really low packs and a cavalier statement that they should just avoid off-roading!  Making me wonder if I'm just worrying about it too much. 

Another advantage to lower batteries is of course the lower center of gravity and thus better cornering handling ability. I should also mention that I will be adding a front lip to my Rex to shunt turbulent air around the side (and to look awesome). So that might mean by the time I hit an obstacle, it's already smashed up my front lip anyway! Something like this:










Thoughts? Should I mount it lower and avoid the interior hassle/ugliness at the cost of less ground clearance?


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## dtbaker (Jan 5, 2008)

notailpipe said:


> The other night I hooked up the tubing and the check valves for my vacuum system. I've got the original check valve that went to the brake booster. From there it goes on to my ABS reservoir in the exhaust tunnel. Then from there it goes into another check valve, and then on to the pump.
> 
> I hooked up the motor directly to my bench power supply (not using the vacuum switch yet) and was able to pump it down to about 18" Hg. That's probably about the best I can do. I'm at 6000ft elevation and I've heard of other high-altitude conversions having this same limit.
> 
> Anyway, the vacuum slowly leaks out. After a couple minutes that 18 drops down to about 5" Hg. Is this typical?



the pump itself will always have 'leak back', so a check valve MUST be between the reservoir and pump. The system *should* hold vacuum pretty much indefinitely. You either have a bad connection, or a bad check valve. 

and yes elevation does de-rate most of these pumps. I am at 7000', and while my pump could eventually pull down to 15inHg, it took a while so I backed off to 13 inHg so that the pumps runs no longer than 15 seconds or so. I get 2 or sometimes 3 'braking events' before pump comes on.


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## dtbaker (Jan 5, 2008)

notailpipe said:


> Thoughts? Should I mount it lower and avoid the interior hassle/ugliness at the cost of less ground clearance?



In my build I wanted the seatback to fold down flush, and to maximize clearance too.... and the original lead was a lot taller than 100ah cells. I ended up using the box top as a flat seat at the original highest point so I could still get adults sitting in the back with headroom, and have 5" of clearance to the ground.... which is at or slightly lower than some things, but above the 'lowest' stuff, and I figure than being mostly between the rear wheels it won't be likely to high center on anything but the most obnoxious speedbump. I have only scraped the bottom edge once, and it was on a badly washed out driveway curbcut that had a big hole on the back-side compounding the issue.

see.... there is a REASON for my stellar astro-turf flat back seat!


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## notailpipe (May 25, 2010)

dtbaker said:


> The system *should* hold vacuum pretty much indefinitely. You either have a bad connection, or a bad check valve.


That was my hunch. Are you using any sort of Teflon *paste* or anything on each connection? I am not, but I've heard of others doing this, and am using regular tubing clamps everywhere. It's also possible it's one of the check valves themselves. Of course I could also have a leak in my reservoir (through the vacuum switch or the add-on gauge). So many places to check!


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## dtbaker (Jan 5, 2008)

notailpipe said:


> That was my hunch. Are you using any sort of Teflon *paste* or anything on each connection? I am not, but I've heard of others doing this, and am using regular tubing clamps everywhere. It's also possible it's one of the check valves themselves. Of course I could also have a leak in my reservoir (through the vacuum switch or the add-on gauge). So many places to check!



I did use paste on many of the connections. I have also heard some of the checkvalves are doa out of the box. so.... just work your way upstream bypassing suspect areas.

i.e. run a temp line from pump, check valve, T for gauge, direct to brake booster. manually run to 15#, and see if it holds. If it leaks, redo connections and try again, if it leaks change the check valve.....then add reservoir back in.


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## notailpipe (May 25, 2010)

dtbaker said:


> I did use paste on many of the connections. I have also heard some of the checkvalves are doa out of the box. so.... just work your way upstream bypassing suspect areas.
> 
> i.e. run a temp line from pump, check valve, T for gauge, direct to brake booster. manually run to 15#, and see if it holds. If it leaks, redo connections and try again, if it leaks change the check valve.....then add reservoir back in.


Good idea. I can do that easily enough. I'm really stressed that I'm not going to finish on time, so I'm strictly doing things that _have_ to be done first, so this I can do later since the brakes will work fine (more of a nuisance thing). I'll put this first on my list of things to do after registration goal achieved.

Where do you get the teflon paste? You using the same screw-on type clamps as I am?


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## notailpipe (May 25, 2010)

Pulled Tankyota into the garage tonight to use his battery and guess what... it works!  The motor spins really smoothly in neutral, no scraping sounds, no wobbling. Yay!


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## notailpipe (May 25, 2010)

dtbaker said:


> In my build I wanted the seatback to fold down flush, and to maximize clearance too....
> 
> see.... there is a REASON for my stellar astro-turf flat back seat!


Haha, it looks like your kids love the astroturf and that's reason enough!

I am leaning more towards locating the battery box lower to the ground, for all the original reasons I posted. With the front lip, ground clearance won't be limited by the batteries. Not to mention I keep the OEM look inside the car and I add better cornering capabilities. Lower FTW!


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## Ellrot (May 17, 2010)

Just a thought about your ground clearance issues. What size alloys are you gonna be rolling on, and what suspension are you going to be using?









I have adjustable coilovers all round, and I'm just rolling on 17's I don't really have any issues with ground clearance. 

Previous to the 17's I had 16's had problems all the time


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## dtbaker (Jan 5, 2008)

notailpipe said:


> Good idea. I can do that easily enough. I'm really stressed that I'm not going to finish on time, so I'm strictly doing things that _have_ to be done first, so this I can do later since the brakes will work fine (more of a nuisance thing). I'll put this first on my list of things to do after registration goal achieved.
> 
> Where do you get the teflon paste? You using the same screw-on type clamps as I am?


The PTFE paste is in plumbing supply of any hardware store.... I put it on the hose/barb connections mostly to help get the dang things in! Then just a dab on threads of brass fittings.


from what I can see in your picture.... you have the check valve in the wrong place. You need it between the reservoir and the vacuum pump, not between the reservoir and brake booster.

nice EV grin on youtube by the way... and you're not even DRIVING yet! sounds ilke you have full support and excitement from the wife, which is a good thing after taking over your garage and all your spare time.


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## notailpipe (May 25, 2010)

dtbaker said:


> from what I can see in your picture.... you have the check valve in the wrong place. You need it between the reservoir and the vacuum pump, not between the reservoir and brake booster.
> 
> nice EV grin on youtube by the way... and you're not even DRIVING yet! sounds ilke you have full support and excitement from the wife, which is a good thing after taking over your garage and all your spare time.


It's just a bad picture, the second check valve is mounted way down by the reservoir, but is between that and the pump.

Yeah, it was pretty exciting just to see it spin. Only one last unknown still and that's my controller which I bought used. Once I see that working I will breathe a huge EV sigh of relief!


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## notailpipe (May 25, 2010)

Ellrot said:


> Just a thought about your ground clearance issues. What size alloys are you gonna be rolling on, and what suspension are you going to be using?


I'll be using 15s as opposed to the stock 13s, and I've lowered the car about 1.5" from stock. Where I live, all the roads are pretty well manicured. The biggest problem will probably be my driveway, which I'll have to pull in at an angle to avoid scraping! 

I've seen larger rims than 15 on a CRX and in my opinion it's just too much for a little Rex, (not to mention worse for rotational momentum).


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## dtbaker (Jan 5, 2008)

notailpipe said:


> It's just a bad picture, the second check valve is mounted way down by the reservoir, but is between that and the pump.


you really don't need or want a check valve between reservoir and brake booster. I would remove it, and if you think it may be better than the other one, put it down between the reservoir and pump.



notailpipe said:


> Yeah, it was pretty exciting just to see it spin. Only one last unknown still and that's my controller which I bought used. Once I see that working I will breathe a huge EV sigh of relief!


I can relate to that feeling.... my second Swift, which I hope to start soon, will have a used Curtis 1221 I got for a good price used. I'm just hoping that its 'good'. Although it's tempting to pop for a new Soliton Jr just to see what serious amps would feel like.


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## notailpipe (May 25, 2010)

dtbaker said:


> you really don't need or want a check valve between reservoir and brake booster. I would remove it, and if you think it may be better than the other one, put it down between the reservoir and pump.


Good idea. I designed the vacuum system off of collective knowledge on the forums, and someone else had two the way I did it (on the EVDL list). Now that I understand the system better, I agree it shouldn't be needed.


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## favguy (May 2, 2008)

Congrats. on the first wheel spin!! It's a great feeling isn't it?

Also, well done on the rack rebuild, your conversion is coming along nicely


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## notailpipe (May 25, 2010)

Long time, no posts. But believe me, I've been working on the car! My work shaved a little more than a month off my deadline (which was already tight) so I have been working practically in my sleep sometimes. Michelle and I are running a marathon in Texas this weekend so hopefully I will have time to add some posts at the airport.

Until then... here's my wiring schematic I drew up. Hope you can read it. Any mistakes? Did I miss anything? Thanks all!


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## oldschoolhondathunder (Sep 29, 2011)

A marathon, EV project, and a crunch work schedule! Hopefully you'll be able to finish the car soon. Have you mounted rear battery rack? How did the clearance issue work out? Looking forward to updated pictures!


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## notailpipe (May 25, 2010)

A lot's happened since my last update with pictures. I don't have all the pictures with me, but here's what I've got.

I got the RPM sensor from Manzanita because it works with the Zilla guaranteed. Had to create my own mount for it since it was made for ADC mounts, but this wasn't too big a deal. Decided to go with wood instead of plastic, mostly to save a trip to the hardware store.  










Mid-painting. Filled some mistake holes with caulk. Whoops. I used truck-bed coating on it to be extra rugged. 










Mounted. Completely covers the tail-end shaft.










Moving on to the coolant system for the controller. I closely examined the Netgain Controls cooling system and decided that they'd done a good job picking parts but that I could do the same or slightly better for less money. If you'd like to recreate my kit, I used:


Reservoir from local auto parts store
Radiator is the Black Ice Extreme II
Pump is Laing D5 Vario
Decided against cooling fans by mounting the radiator to get airflow from vehicle movement. Can add fans later if needed, but controller should only need cooling when moving

Total cost, around $150 including tubing and adaptors from the hardware store.

The reservoir installed behind the driver's side headlight. Gravity feed into pump below, which has an adjustable potentiometer to set the speed. I put in coolant later (no pics yet) and at 4 (out of 5 speed), the pump is moving lots of fluid through the system and can't be heard!










The radiator installed behind the bumper. There are several inches of space between radiator and where the batteries will be, allowing air to flow and I might possibly try to shunt this air down under the car later.










Lastly, front view of the radiator. The bumper will eventually have black ABS plastic damming up the back to shunt airflow under the car to reduce drag. The only opening will be the rectangle for the radiator. The flash for the photo makes the radiator more obvious, but even without I think this'll look really good when it's finished.










Rear battery rack welding complete, primed and painted with truckbed rubberized coating. Ready to install! More on that soon...










Finally, installed the "big red button" emergency disconnect switch. After much debating, decided the best place to put it was on the center console but low and sort of out of the way. Still in arm's reach in an emergency but won't accidentally get pressed by my legs. It's in a spot that someone tall like me or short like my wife, or anywhere in between, can't accidentally hit it. Looks pretty pimp...


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## Ziggythewiz (May 16, 2010)

Concerned about the e-disconnect button (is it a button?). Location should be determined not by likelihood to accidental hit, but by likelihood for someone else to see and hit it in an emergency. Near console on driver's left is a pretty standard location. It looks like a good setup for maintenance cutoff, but I don't think it would work well in an emergency scenario.


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## dtbaker (Jan 5, 2008)

thanks for posting links to pump and radiator....

button location might be visible for emergency responder, but probably hard to reach.  I'd say its a wash with putting it on the left under the dash since the average responder wouldn't see it there.... I'd suggest a yellow 'high voltage' plaque pop-rivetted on there, but it looks better than what I've got.


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## notailpipe (May 25, 2010)

Ziggythewiz said:


> Concerned about the e-disconnect button (is it a button?). Location should be determined not by likelihood to accidental hit, but by likelihood for someone else to see and hit it in an emergency. Near console on driver's left is a pretty standard location. It looks like a good setup for maintenance cutoff, but I don't think it would work well in an emergency scenario.


My car doesn't have anywhere to mount to in that location. There is one spot on the dash itself that could've possibly worked, but it was kinda hidden behind the steering wheel from the driver's perspective, and globbed in there with other buttons. The chances of killing the car when you meant to turn on the heat were too high.

It's not my favorite spot, but it's definitely noticeable when you go sit in the car. I was actually thinking everyone's first question would be "what's that red thing?"!


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## notailpipe (May 25, 2010)

dtbaker said:


> thanks for posting links to pump and radiator....
> 
> button location might be visible for emergency responder, but probably hard to reach.  I'd say its a wash with putting it on the left under the dash since the average responder wouldn't see it there.... I'd suggest a yellow 'high voltage' plaque pop-rivetted on there, but it looks better than what I've got.


Dan, did you see my earlier post on my wiring diagram? I'm afraid people might've missed it due to the timing of my posts. Just trying to get some feedback, but it's still probably not til a week or two til I wire it up.


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## dladd (Jun 1, 2011)

I'm no wiring expert, but I'd say you may need a few more fuses. One in the charger output to pack wiring, and maybe one between the main contactor and the DC/DC contactor. 

Are you going to use a heater?

I'll also say I've REALLY liked having a manual disconnect in the high voltage circuit so I can quickly flip it on and off when working on high voltage stuff. In my case it's a circuit breaker, but a big ass Anderson connector in the circuit would be easy and cheaper.


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## notailpipe (May 25, 2010)

dladd said:


> I'm no wiring expert, but I'd say you may need a few more fuses. One in the charger output to pack wiring, and maybe one between the main contactor and the DC/DC contactor.
> 
> Are you going to use a heater?


Good idea on the charger output, I'll add that, though I do see fuse protection between the contactor and dc/dc relay circuit (?). 

I'm going to use a ceramic heater, which will have its own separate circuit with plenty 'o fuses, but I'm not doing that before the tax-year registration deadline, since it's not strictly required. 



dladd said:


> I'll also say I've REALLY liked having a manual disconnect in the high voltage circuit so I can quickly flip it on and off when working on high voltage stuff. In my case it's a circuit breaker, but a big ass Anderson connector in the circuit would be easy and cheaper.


Where can I find out more about those? I've heard people talk about that but not really sure what the deal is. Is it a connector with some sort of insulated lever I can use to disconnect the path? Will that handle 1000A peak? If you can point me to more info I might be able to get that installed in time. 

Thanks for your comments.


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## notailpipe (May 25, 2010)

Finally... some pictures of my rear battery rack mount! It's a little hard to tell in these pictures, but there are four anchor points of the rack to the car. There is a front bar and a rear bar, each running perpendicular to the direction of vehicle travel. There were solidly welded to the box with many supports. Then on each end of these bars are 3/8" x 6" bolts going through the suspension bulkhead points. It's EXTREMELY solidly mounted.










Just to be safe while I'm in there, I implemented my idea to use straps that keep some of the battery weight from wanting to shift the box during a hard braking event. There is so much welding on that box I don't think it even can move, but JIC. So underneath the suspension are two holes that I attached to using an angled bolt that has been tapped into the strap and then welded. The bolts "hook" into the holes and bolt to the box. This way, the box is securely strapped to the car but can be completely removed by just taking out the six bolts. Here's the view of that strapping from the rearview of the car:










Next I borrowed a double-flarer tool from AutoZone (for free, w00t), learned to make a nice double-flare on the old scrap brake line, and then finally repaired the brake line that I had to cut to make room for the box. I also borrowed a brake bender tool from AZ but found I could just bend it over pretty much anything solid cause the tool didn't fit in most spaces. Here's the final repaired brake line:










Finally, what's a brake job without a complete brake fluid flush? I only thought I was going to have to bleed the brakes, but learned about how brake fluid should be completely flushed ever couple years, and boy was it true for C-Rex! Look at this squid ink.. I mean brake fluid  










After repairing it all, Michelle helped me bleed the brakes. I tell you, I could not have done this project without her. After a full day of work and then hours of errands, she sat in the car and bled the brakes (with her eyes closed, half asleep) so I could make some progress. She really keeps me going! 

Another thing that keeps me going... 










Okay, I think my battery might die any minute. Posting!


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## notailpipe (May 25, 2010)

Filled the cooling system with 50/50 water/antifreeze mix. This stuff looks awesomely colorful in the pictures. 




























Ran it for about 15 minutes and checked for leaks. Found none. A week later, still no leaks so I think I'm good. 

Installed the charger and a project box I'm re-using to hold the relays, fuses, and other electronics:










Put the hood on when placing the charger just to make sure I still have clearance. Still good! 

Installed the contactor:










Installed the inertia switch:










Pretty soon I'll be on to putting in the batteries, strapping, and miniBMS!


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## dladd (Jun 1, 2011)

notailpipe said:


> Where can I find out more about those? I've heard people talk about that but not really sure what the deal is. Is it a connector with some sort of insulated lever I can use to disconnect the path? Will that handle 1000A peak? If you can point me to more info I might be able to get that installed in time.
> 
> Thanks for your comments.


I was just thinking of a basic Anderson connector with a handle, don't really know much about them, but it looks like they are only rated at 350a?? I thought they would be higher. They are for sale on many EV web stores. I don't really get the whole amp rating thing, it seems like most people under rate the components they use. For example, the recommended fuse for a 1000a system is a 500a fuse. 

Anyway, the connector is not something that would be used under load, just for maintenance purposes. The main fuse is there for protection.


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## notailpipe (May 25, 2010)

Alright folks, long-time, no posts. I owe you an update.  

Well, to give you a spoiler of the ending for those following the story, I finished the car enough to register it as electric, so I made it in the deadline for the tax credit! What follows is pictures of getting to that far and what I've done since registering it (which was really the lowest "passing" bar).

Where we left off, the racks were finished but no batteries had been mounted.

First thing I did was test my banding/strapping tool on my backup 12V aux battery. I've mounted it to a little piece of wood and bolted that down in some unused space down by the mud flaps. This thing shouldn't need to get to often so it's a good spot for it, also can be low and doesn't need moisture protection (though it has it there).










Next I re-did my mount platform for the Zilla's Hairball (computer) and my DC/DC converter. I stupidly made it out of plexiglass before, I guess because it was cheap and looked kinda cool having the HB and DC/DC "floating" in air on a clear platform. Well, it was a bad idea because as soon as I tightened it down a little too much in the mounts, a hairline crack started and grew throughout. It wasn't too much wasted time though, as I used the plexiglass version as a template for the new aluminum version, plus could fix a few little curves here and there so it actually ended up a better fit because of it.










And here it is mounted in the engine bay.










Time to mount the batteries finally! Here I've taken all the endpieces for each section and epoxied the aluminum endplates on. They will be strapped later to help with swelling during charging, the glue will just hold it for while I strap it. 










For each of the four bundles of batteries, I align them together, put the aluminum endcaps on, and then strap them with metal banding inside the battery strap channels/grooves. This kit I got off CL to strap it all together and it was a really good way to do it. I'd definitely do it again. One lever pulls them tight, then I use a metal crimp which can hold several hundred pounds of tension. The only problem was you can make it too tight and snap the bands. It's just frustrating but eventually I got the hang of it. 










First one in the car!










Next I used a nylon strapping kit that the guy off CL threw in for free! I also highly recommend this as a method to hold down the batteries. It's much easier to assemble than the metal banding, it also holds like 600lbs of tension, and best of all it's non-conductive so you can run this along the top terminal-side of the batteries without worrying about creating any short circuits. So far I have driven a few miles with them and they're not loosening up or anything. In the bottom of this picture you can see the loops that were welded on to hold this strapping.










More to come!


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## notailpipe (May 25, 2010)

Second, mini-pack in the car.










At first, for the big firewall pack, I tried pre-laying out the metal straps, filling in the rack with batteries, and then strapping the banding together in-car, as shown below. One thing I learned... this doesn't work. At least, if a band breaks, then you're screwed. And at this point in the process I was still breaking maybe 1 in 3 band attempts on average. _So if you go this route, keep this in mind as you must be able to assemble a pack on the bench, then lower it in._ This is actually pretty key to keep in mind, because the packs get HEAVY fast. And also the rack has to be designed to allow it to slip in (more on that later when I show the rear rack). 










Now, it was just Michelle and I putting in this front rack so since it weighed about 100lbs I had to rig up some system so we could rest and then lower them in without crushing our fingers. 2x4s and tow straps did the trick. 










All front racks mounted!










The strapping the batteries in-car not working for the firewall rack didn't forebode well for the rear box, since it would be about 4 straps total, but I didn't see a better alternative. First off, I had build a cage around the batteries so that they had to be loaded in one at a time, then strapped. See here, the top frame was meant for a cover to sit on so you had to put them in one by one.










As it is, I already had to grind a slot for lowering in the very last one (I didn't think this through fully when I was building the box).

_Edit: fixed broken image link_









Well, lo and behold, we finally got all the batteries in when I went to do the banding together and realized, I can't even get the strapping tools to fit under the car! Did I mention I wasn't thinking very clearly, if at all, towards the end of the deadline? Might've been the 50 hour weeks at work and then another 20 hours per week on the car...

Well, so that left me with only the one possible solution. I needed to cut the entire front rail top off so that the batteries could be lowered in. I then put them in as two separate units of 13 batteries each. Firstly, so I wasn't ever having to handle a 260lb unwieldy pack. Secondly, so i only had to grind of one side (the front) of the top rail, since I could lower in one pack and scoot it over, then the second one straight down. The first night I could organize a bunch of guys to come over and help with it, that's exactly what we did. Here it is, finally in the car. What a pain!


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## notailpipe (May 25, 2010)

Now it was time to install the BMS onto the pack. Not being a fan of tedious labor but being a huge fan of "many hands make light work," I had my sister over and the three of us had an assembly line of creating the battery loop links. I sure know how to party! 










I showed Michelle how to hook up the batteries and she mastered it in no time. To summarize my learnings from reading all the forum posts on this I could find, we first sanded the top of the battery terminals with 320grit sandpaper and the bottoms of the copper connectors. She then applied a very light coat of No-Ox-Id to the two surfaces. You want to use that because one is copper and one aluminum, and the two dissimilar metals will eventually corrode and cause a high resistance connection. However, the no-ox-id is actually an insulator so you just want enough to fill micro pores in the metals. A thin coat will cause all the pores to fill and all the excess to squish out, thus letting the two metals make a good connection. Essentially you are preserving the connection more than making it a better conductor at the surface. 

She then put the battery (high-current) connectors first, then the mini-BMS, then torqued the bolts to 115 ft-lbs. A higher torque spec worked for the copper (cathode) side but tended to strip the aluminum (anode, positive) terminals. Since there's no advantage to any being tighter than the others, we torqued them all the same to the lower one.

This was great because Michelle did all the connections and saved me probably 6 hours of time I could work on other components, like taking pictures. 










Final view of mini-BMS installed.










Meanwhile I worked on cutting and fitting the rest of the 2/0 AWG welding wire for the batteries. Here I mounted the 500A fuse (can carry 1000A intermittent) and the EV Display current sensor in between the two small front "radiator" racks. The EV Display measures the current from the batteries and can therefore also keep track of SOC of the pack, essentially becoming my fuel gauge. Later I ran the ethernet connection to the cabin interior and installed the display on my dash. I don't know if I have pictures of it later, but I also had to install a capacitor at the pack voltage input, and a ferrite choke ring. Otherwise I was picking up too much electrical noise from the motor, and the reading would jump around from 30A to 1000A, when I knew the motor was barely pulling anything. Once I installed those the problem went away.










Underneath the car, I ran some PVC electrical tubing from Home Depot to the rear battery rack. This just provides some protection and keeps them from dangling. Later I would also install an underbelly to cover it further, but this is sufficient. It also looks cool. 










Next I mounted the throttle box. I really procrastinated doing this because I knew I was going to build a better one myself later and so I bought a cheapie China one just to get me to the DMV essentially. Sidenote: it practically did only get me to the DMV without breaking somewhat - in the first day of driving the top resistance went from 5K (expected) to 3K, thus limiting my throttle input to 3/5 normal. All the more reason I want to build my own better one (can't use an off-the-shelf Hall effect one with my controller). 

Anyway, so I mounted it to the transmission housing because it was the easiest thing to do and it's temporary. The final one won't be there. It's not really a great idea, since motor twisting will make the throttle open/close slightly and so the driving will be a little bit jerky this way. Like I said, it's just a temporary mount. But one really cool thing about this mount was I got to try out this new tool I got from the hardware store. It's like a bunch of pins that lets me transfer and save a curve profile. I wish I knew about these when I started the project!!


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## notailpipe (May 25, 2010)

Here is the throttle mounted in the car. As you can see, transmission vibrations run transverse to the direction of pull, so won't affect the throttle input a lot, but it's definitely non-ideal. Later, not shown, I would hook up the throttle to the box and add a redundant return spring for safety.










Inside my project box I started wiring up all the electronics. In here are fuses, relays, and the mini-BMS control board. I also planned to put my tachometer divider circuit, motor temp sensor circuit, and a few more things here too but I'm probably not going to have room and will have to mount another box elsewhere later. I added a toggle circuit to the brake so that I could turn it off while debugging other circuits, otherwise every time I was getting somewhere in debugging, the brake pump would kick on. It also let me turn off the brakes and test if I really needed power brake assist after all (I do).










Here's the project box with the lid on it. Got these stickers off eBay.


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## notailpipe (May 25, 2010)

I posted some videos of the project to YouTube.

The first spin of the wheels using the controller. Guess my used controller worked after all, what a relief!





My sister takes her first "ride" in the car. It was icy outside so we just backed the car in and out of the garage spot. 





A shot of a driveby at night...





And a video that you probably don't want to watch.. we shot the entire four-minute drive to the dealership to get the VIN verification. So this is probably only interesting to me, but if you want to see me keeping up with traffic.. no problem!


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## EVfun (Mar 14, 2010)

Wow, what a nice batch of updates. Great pictures and I'm happy to hear you got it road legal. Thanks for sharing all the pictures.


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## Joey (Oct 12, 2007)

Great job on the car. Thanks for posting all of the details, especially how you solved problems that crept up.


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## dtbaker (Jan 5, 2008)

why did you have to get a VIN verification? Is that a CO thing?

In NM, all I had to do was provide a certified scale weight.... they didn't want to inspect ANYTHING even when I told them I had replaced the gasoline engine with electric, and wanted the car re-registered as 0-cyclinder all-electric.


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## notailpipe (May 25, 2010)

dtbaker said:


> why did you have to get a VIN verification? Is that a CO thing?


Yeah, must be a CO thing. Anytime anything changes on the registration besides owner, they do that. I did it originally too when I first bought the car because it was out of state. Personally I think it's a revenue income for them since they charge $15 to walk outside and check the VIN matches. But I since learned a Honda dealership (maybe any make) will do it for free.


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## oldschoolhondathunder (Sep 29, 2011)

It's cool to see a project successfully complete, even through all the challenges. But, I'm sure you'll be tweaking things here and there for a little while . Great work!

Did you put an under body shield to help reduce drag? Do you have any pictures of the inside? I'm curious to see how the center battery rack turned out.

Thanks for contributing so much detail, pictures, and videos to the EV world!


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## notailpipe (May 25, 2010)

oldschoolhondathunder said:


> Did you put an under body shield to help reduce drag? Do you have any pictures of the inside? I'm curious to see how the center battery rack turned out.


Thanks for the comments. 

Yeah, actually I did put an underbelly on. I've got that and the rear battery box sound deadening to write up still. I hope to write that up tonight and post some more pictures.

What's left on the car are two big issues and then lots of little trailing threads, plus all the cosmetic work (paint job prep) left to still be done.

The two big issues are:
1. I'm on round two of my braking solution and still unsatisfied with the super-loud pump noise. Will write more detail later on what I tried.
2. I still need to design my own throttle box. I hate knowing that 'Rex wants to give me more but he can't cause of my cheapie temporary pot! Plus, if the resistance can change from 5K to 3K in one day of use, I'm afraid I'll suddenly get an open circuit and take off at a stop light...


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## favguy (May 2, 2008)

Wow, you must really like Coke lol!!

Congratulations on getting near to completion, looking good 

Best regards,

Paul


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## notailpipe (May 25, 2010)

Haha, sure do! I used to stock it full of beer but on a hot summer day after a lot of welding in a hot coverall suit, chugging a beer just wasn't that appetizing. I like to think I got more effective with a stimulant than a depressant too. 

And thanks. I'll be really glad to be driving it soon, though my wife thinks I should paint it fully before I drive it, since people will probably write it off as a hooptie with its current paintjob/fender benders... haha


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## charliehorse55 (Sep 23, 2011)

notailpipe said:


> Plus, if the resistance can change from 5K to 3K in one day of use, I'm afraid I'll suddenly get an open circuit and take off at a stop light...


This always gets me about motor controllers, they should work in the opposite way. The less resistance, the faster. Higher chance of an open connection than a short.


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## Duncan (Dec 8, 2008)

_I'm afraid I'll suddenly get an open circuit and take off at a stop light...

_I am using the OpenRevolt controller
Zero Ohms - Zero current
5,000 Ohms - 500Amps
20,000 Ohms - FAULT - Zero current_ - _the resistance it faults at can be set in softwareI would be surprised if commercial controllers don't have this feature


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## notailpipe (May 25, 2010)

Yeah, now that you mention it I do believe the Zilla checks for an open connection. Thanks for putting my mind at ease.


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## EVfun (Mar 14, 2010)

Anything over about 5500 ohms is out of range and Zilla cuts power.


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## mk4gti (May 6, 2011)

Thanks for the inspiration for the battery boxes! (the project is also very sweet!)

I'm curious what are the handles at the bottom of the battery box used for?


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## Ellrot (May 17, 2010)

mk4gti said:


> Thanks for the inspiration for the battery boxes! (the project is also very sweet!)
> 
> I'm curious what are the handles at the bottom of the battery box used for?


The battery Strapping


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## notailpipe (May 25, 2010)

Correct, see the picture at the bottom of post #192. The metal bands hold the batteries to each other as a unit to prevent charge swelling, and then the metal loops you refer to are essentially tie-down points for the nylon straps that keeps the bundle from moving while driving.


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## Ziggythewiz (May 16, 2010)

What material did you use for the tie down loops?


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## notailpipe (May 25, 2010)

Ziggythewiz said:


> What material did you use for the tie down loops?


It's nylon strapping. The box it came in says "U-LINE" on it. That's all I know from memory, the guy I bought it from threw it in with my metal strapping kit.

Okay, here it is, and the buckles are the heavy-duty metal ones shown here, not those white plastic ones.


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## Ziggythewiz (May 16, 2010)

I mean the metal loops. Did you just bend some scraps, nails, or what?


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## notailpipe (May 25, 2010)

Ziggythewiz said:


> I mean the metal loops. Did you just bend some scraps, nails, or what?


Ah, no it's 3/16" mild-steel rod that I bought from a local metal supplier and bent in my vise.


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## mk4gti (May 6, 2011)

So essentially if a cell goes bad (not jinxing you here), you have to remove the strapping and remove the cell section? Not nitpicking, just learning


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## notailpipe (May 25, 2010)

mk4gti said:


> So essentially if a cell goes bad (not jinxing you here), you have to remove the strapping and remove the cell section? Not nitpicking, just learning


Yup. I suppose you could also disconnect the cell and bypass it with a couple lugs and wire, but assuming you want to replace the cell you would have a lot of work ahead of you. Learning is great.  

I think you'll find that everyone has some sort of similar system for the prismatic cells. They tend to swell when charging so you need to hold them from doing that too much or they can crack open. Tons of thread on this if you wanna search around, but, practically speaking, that's all you really need to know about it.


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## gor (Nov 25, 2009)

congratulations, N
wonderful build and thread
don't forget to keep us posted on how it does, performs, all developments etc 
again, congratulations : )))


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## dtbaker (Jan 5, 2008)

notailpipe said:


> I think you'll find that everyone has some sort of similar system for the prismatic cells. They tend to swell when charging so you need to hold them from doing that too much or they can crack open.


...I have not seen, or read, anything about the cells swelling under 'normal' charging conditions. I have read reports of swelling and/or venting when overcharged (overheated internally), or perhaps charged at a very high rate with massive regen.

I would GUESS that extended high-c discharge would also heat and soften cases to the point where if internal temp gets too high then the goop inside starts to vaporize, build pressure, and vent or swell cases....

In either of these over-heat conditions.... seems that clamping the cases to prevent swelling only increases the chance of venting. toss-up since swelling probably allows the anode-cathode foils to separate, or allow bubbles that prevent electron transfer, etc, etc, etc.

point is under 'normal' use, I don't think elaborate clamping is needed.


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## notailpipe (May 25, 2010)

I don't know about elaborate, but I was told by Keegan from Calibpower that they should be clamped somehow. It's also in the CALB documentation that came with my cells. Straps seemed like the simplest way for me, though I've seen some people (actually, just battery manuals) do it with threaded rod. Probably cause that adds more weight.


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## MN Driver (Sep 29, 2009)

Threaded rod and end plates is what Sky Energy used to provide with their cells. There were complaints that they weren't as easy or nice to use as the assembled yellow TS cells.


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## notailpipe (May 25, 2010)

More on the build...

I worked on the switch for my heater for a little bit. Basically a huge sinkhole of time. I used a solid-state relay (SSR) from eBay that looked rated for my application. 250VDC loads, up to 40A. Measurements had previously shown my ceramic heater to use about 15A at 144VDC. So it should've worked fine. 










Wired it all up and it worked for about ten seconds before dying. I have spent the last four weeks trying to get my money back from these dishonest chinese guys and to no avail. They strung me along for a week asking for my circuit diagram as a prerequisite for getting a refund (when used in an as-speced system, I don't think I owe anybody any of my IP of any sort when their product fails ) Anyway, then they suckered me into mailing it to them before they'd refund it. So I'm probably out even more money... so lesson is don't waste your time with this cheap chinese junk...

I next got involved with a thread here on DIYev.com about what is really involved to switch these ceramic heating elements. Turns out that being such a heavy DC current is extremely difficult to break the current and you need something designed just for that. Some even use a Kilovac just for the heater. Here's the thread if you want to read more detail, but since everyone was just speculating, I did a simple test with a light switch from the hardware store and the result was crackles, smoke, fire, and a racing heartbeat. 










After that, dtbaker recommended the switching kit that KTA-ev sells. It's a little bit pricey, but not too bad. I wish I could get my time/money wasted back from that POS SSR and buy something right in the first place. So I've ordered that and it should arrive this weekend, so I can finally button up this particular step.


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## notailpipe (May 25, 2010)

The next step was to soundproof and insulate the hole in the floor. For those that forgot, I cut a hole where a normal car rear seat would go (CRX's only had two seats and a little storage pocket there). The goal for this step was largely just to reduce road noise coming into the cabin, but a secondary goal was to protect the batteries from any road mist/slush/etc.

The first thing I did was coat the sides of the batteries with this stuff I got at Lowes called Peel 'n Seal. It is made for fixing roofing problems, but I got the idea from many car audio forums that suggest it as a cheap alternative to more expensive sound proofing, as it has good sound dampening properties. I've heard that "Quick Roof" is basically the same thing but tends to be only at Home Depot. 










Anyway, sticking it around the battery box would be the first line of defense at blocking road sound. In the process of doing this I learned there is basically sound deadening, which means the sound waves are turned into heat by the medium, and then there's sound absorption, more like foam materials, that just creates lots of obstructions for the sound to get through. Deadening can block much sound in a small thickness but the best overall was recommended to do some of both.

The one downside to this stuff is I read on a hot day it will give off asphalt fumes that will take several days to air out of your car. I figured I can get around this problem by putting it on the _outside_ of the car, like underneath, so that the fumes are never inside the car. My sound absorption material I think will block most of the smell too. So, when summer comes, we'll see. 

Step one was wrapping the outside perimeter of the battery box with the Peel 'n Seal, as well as the bottom surface of the sheet metal floor of the car. 










When all of it was applied, I went over the whole layer with my heat gun and got it pretty hot. This melted the asphalt/sticky-rubber surface to ensure that it oozed into cracks and really was stuck on there good. That stuff ain't goin nowhere.










Here you can see the view from inside the car. I stuck the PNS between the sheet metal of the car and the side of the batteries. This helps contain the sound but also gives me a backing for the second line of road noise defense, sound absorber.










Finally, just in case I didn't do an underbelly plastic cover under the car (I eventually did), I didn't want drivers behind me to see a glaring shiny foil box under the car. So all the PNS and any uncovered slivers of battery get blasted with black paint.


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## notailpipe (May 25, 2010)

Next step was my sound absorber. I used "Great Stuff" expanding foam to fill any gaps that I didn't get with PNS. This stuff is also a great sound absorber, they use it in door cracks in houses to keep out noise (as well as heat). 










I next bolted down a sheet of plexiglass cut to fit over the top of the battery box. I've got rubber weatherstripping around the bottom of the plastic which forms a tight fit against the box. I figured the only part of the batteries that sound could still come through was up through the vertical channels between batteries, since I didn't PNS the box bottom. So any sound that works its way into the battery terminal area is further dampened by the plexiglass top and weatherstipping sides. Lastly, on top of the plexiglass, before the rear seat cover goes down, I put down a layer of carpet padding which further absorbs sound. 

Note the cool warning stickers from eBay again. 










After carpet padding is put down and then the seat cover, it looks OEM again (but can be lifted to check BMS indicator lights). Batteries? What batteries! 










We took a ride in the car later and it was very quiet. Mission accomplished!


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## oldschoolhondathunder (Sep 29, 2011)

Pretty sweet OEM look in the back. I guess you had to drop the batteries significantly to get the original cover to go back on. What is that wood contraption behind your batteries in the back? You'll likely post pics of the underbelly you mentioned, but what did you make it out of?


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## notailpipe (May 25, 2010)

oldschoolhondathunder said:


> Pretty sweet OEM look in the back. I guess you had to drop the batteries significantly to get the original cover to go back on. What is that wood contraption behind your batteries in the back? You'll likely post pics of the underbelly you mentioned, but what did you make it out of?


Thanks. Yeah, that was the main reason for the low ground clearance, but the Integra springs gave me the clearance I needed. Actually, I forget if I wrote about that but I put some aftermarket Tein springs for a DC Integra (94-01) on there because they have a higher spring rate, it boosted me about 2" in the back. 

That wood was a spacer to hold up the rear trunk floor so I can still put groceries or my puppy back there.  I got rid of the spare tire. 

Soon that wood spacer will go away because I'm going to mount my vacuum pump in a sealed enclosure back there. I'll use the box to also hold up the floor instead. I'm also going to put a travel kit of like useful tools back there in case I need to diagnose anything on the road (screwdriver, multimeter, Zilla error code list and diagnostic palmpilot, etc.)


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## Agust Sigurdsson (Oct 25, 2009)

Many thanks for the excellent update and pictures of your Honda EV and congratulations on making it before the deadline.
I wish that the Icelandic authorities would introduce some similar tax refund programs for EV conversions. Considering that we have abundance of clean electric power from hydroelectric and geothermal power stations this should be a no brainer.
Agust


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## notailpipe (May 25, 2010)

Agust Sigurdsson said:


> Many thanks for the excellent update and pictures of your Honda EV and congratulations on making it before the deadline.
> I wish that the Icelandic authorities would introduce some similar tax refund programs for EV conversions. Considering that we have abundance of clean electric power from hydroelectric and geothermal power stations this should be a no brainer.
> Agust


Yeah, that's a bummer. I've read a lot about your country's power generation. Usually I think of tax credits/subsidies as something the government has to nudge in the direction it wants. Since cheap clean power is so prevalent in Iceland, maybe they figure it doesn't need any help and market forces will steer it there on its own?


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## Ellrot (May 17, 2010)

notailpipe said:


> Thanks. Yeah, that was the main reason for the low ground clearance, but the Integra springs gave me the clearance I needed. Actually, I forget if I wrote about that but I put some aftermarket Tein springs for a DC Integra (94-01) on there because they have a higher spring rate, it boosted me about 2" in the back.


Nice one on the springs, "Tein" are a quality company! I still reckon you should get some 17's on, Higher top speed and all that Jazz


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## notailpipe (May 25, 2010)

I've seen Rex's at crxcommunity.com with 17's and bigger... not my style. Plus has a _killer_ effect on watt-hours/mile at high speeds due to the extra rotating mass. I think 15s/16s look good, but got a good deal on the 15s I found on CL so that kinda settled the issue for me. 

In other news, that seller who sold me that crappy SSR off eBay not only wasted my time and money with his cheap POS product but also duped me into sending it back to him (on my own dime) to get the refund. Now eBay says it's past the time I can file a claim...  arrrrggghh! I am done trying to save a buck on the junk coming out of that country. SSR was junk, throttle box was junk, only the batteries have been good so far... you get what you pay for.


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## Arlo (Dec 27, 2009)

notailpipe said:


> I've seen Rex's at crxcommunity.com with 17's and bigger... not my style. Plus has a _killer_ effect on watt-hours/mile at high speeds due to the extra rotating mass. I think 15s/16s look good, but got a good deal on the 15s I found on CL so that kinda settled the issue for me.
> 
> In other news, that seller who sold me that crappy SSR off eBay not only wasted my time and money with his cheap POS product but also duped me into sending it back to him (on my own dime) to get the refund. Now eBay says it's past the time I can file a claim...  arrrrggghh! I am done trying to save a buck on the junk coming out of that country. SSR was junk, throttle box was junk, only the batteries have been good so far... you get what you pay for.


 Did you use vise through paypal? You can tell visa and if you claim is good enough they will get your money back. I had a guy take my money for a tranny and I had to get visa to get my money back when he never shipped it! Paypal just said "we tried to get your money back but there was nothign in his account" lol.


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## dladd (Jun 1, 2011)

Congratulations on getting it 'done' by the end of the year! Now you can take a deep breath, relax, and have fun really finishing it up.

on a safety, and maybe slightly annoying note, your wife really ought to remove any jewelry/watch before wrenching on the battery pack, just in case. Lots of energy potential down there just looking for a path out!



notailpipe said:


>


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## touge_g35 (Jan 27, 2012)

Awesome build, very nice indeed.


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## notailpipe (May 25, 2010)

dladd said:


> Congratulations on getting it 'done' by the end of the year! Now you can take a deep breath, relax, and have fun really finishing it up.
> 
> on a safety, and maybe slightly annoying note, your wife really ought to remove any jewelry/watch before wrenching on the battery pack, just in case. Lots of energy potential down there just looking for a path out!


Haha, yes, it's true. She has some electrical engineering background, and I am an electrical engineer. You'd think we'd be the safest people to work on it, but we probably just think we are smarter than we are and actually more at risk.  That being said, I did get electrocuted twice on the project, but just with one hand cause I always tried to at least follow that safety convention. It didn't feel pleasant.

It's like how all the rock climbers/skydivers that die are the experts - they get cocky.

As a sidenote: been driving the car and figuring out some of its quirks still. Things have been really busy at work so I haven't had a chance to update yet. Hopefully soon!


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## notailpipe (May 25, 2010)

touge_g35 said:


> Awesome build, very nice indeed.


Thank you!


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## binaryhellstorm (May 25, 2012)

What kind of driving range are you seeing on this?


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## notailpipe (May 25, 2010)

I'm seeing a theoretical range of about 70miles, though I haven't figured out a good way to test this without getting stranded. Theoretically I can drive down to Denver and charge overnight. 

I need to post updates, I spent about 6 months building my EV, then 6 month hiatus from working on it/posting. I guess I did get a little burnt out...

Time to get back to it!


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## dtbaker (Jan 5, 2008)

notailpipe said:


> I'm seeing a theoretical range of about 70miles, though I haven't figured out a good way to test this without getting stranded.



you REALLY don't want to drive the pack down to its knees if you can avoid it for the long healthy life of the pack.... what I would suggest is driving 'normally' till your ah counter shows exactly 50% DOD based on your cell size, and doubling that to figure 100% 

i.e. what I did with 100ah cells was drive around till my CycleAnalyst showed 50ah consumed. I did this a couple times, and it came out pretty consistently between 25 and 27 miles at 50ah in my case. So I use 50 miles as a theoretical max range..... at least until the cells get old and start losing capacity.

THAT is a whole 'nother topic, and I think the only way we'll know when cells start losing capacity is when we start seeing some sag or lack of recovery with fewer miles driven.


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## notailpipe (May 25, 2010)

That's precisely what I've done, is that I get roughly 35 miles down to 50%.

Now, I agree you don't want to go to ZERO-zero, but I'm using the EV Display as a SOC meter and I've got 20% charge left set as my "E" level. So if I went 70 miles, theoretically I'd still have 20% charge left at that point. Some people go lower/higher than this, but 20% is the consensus I came up with through reading.

I guess you have to determine what you're comfortable with and then use as is. For example, I designed it to make an occasional trip to Denver, but that would be its max range. I'd rather make that trip and shorten my battery life a tiny bit than think of my car as an expensive, over-engineered, grocery-getter. I'd rather it felt a little more utilitarian at the cost of lifetime.


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## notailpipe (May 25, 2010)

Took the day off work and one goal for today and this weekend is to post a few updates about the car.

Update #1 is someone asked if I could send them my wiring diagram. I redrew it because I made a few edits to the old one. Figured I'd just post it here in case it benefits anyone else. Comments below the pic.











Attempted liberal application of fuses

You'll notice my DC/DC is wired to always-on. I used to have this wired off and then when I turned the key to ON it would use power from the backup battery to energize the relay for the DC/DC. I discovered that my 7.2Ah AUX battery wasn't big enough (at least for this) so if I left my car undriven for a few days, there wouldn't be enough juice to turn on the relay and the car would be unstartable. I thought about using a momentary switch to temporarily "jumpstart" the DC/DC, and get 12V going, but it was a bit ghetto since I'd have to pop the hood (true, I could put it in the car). But I learned the MTBF for these DC/DCs are like 16 years of always-on operation, so I'm just leaving mine on all the time. Sometimes I think it'd be nice to revisit this, but I might just leave it. The root problem is the DC/DC itself actually drains a few mA from the AUX battery, as well as a few leaks inside the car (clock, etc.)

The Kilovac contactor is obviously N.O., but I forgot to mark that.


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## notailpipe (May 25, 2010)

Someone else asked about how I wired up my brake system and basically trying to understand the vacuum switches in general. I thought now's a good time to finally write up my vacuum box in more detail as well as how to adjust Square-D switches. A lot of people have these switches but there isn't much out there on how to set the hysteresis. 

Everything you will need: MDF for the box, tube, pump, vacuum switch, vacuum gauge, check valve, muffler, lots of $ worth of pipe fittings and clamps from your local ACE hardware, NPT die set, pipe thread teflon paste, and some ABS pipe if you are building a reservoir (recommended, I can pump my brakes 2, sometimes 3 times before the pump kicks on again). Note I was redoing my brake system so I already had a previous reservoir built (will rebuild here).









If anyone with the same equipment wants to build the same exact box, this fits perfectly in a CRX spare tire well.  Here's my cut list:









Build the box, glue with wood glue, brad nails are extra credit.









While that was drying, I took apart my old reservoir and found the culprit for my inability to hold a vacuum. Don't buy this crappy AutoZone "universal" check valve. In my scan of the system below, I give the part name for a good valve.









Okay, here's what we're building:









The "left end" hooks to the brake booster where your old ICE used to supply vacuum. Note that my vacuum settings are pretty low, this is because I live at high altitude and after leaving my pump on for like a minute determined the highest it could hit was about 17.5" Hg, with time to reach that exponentially higher after 16.5", so that's where I set my high limit. Low limit was at about 11.5", the lower this goes the longer you can go without the pump going on after a brake, but you don't want to go too low or sacrifice brake performance.  So I just found a good tradeoff in that the pump can pull it back to high level in a few seconds of pumping, and 11.5" Hg felt still pretty strong at the pedal. You'll pretty much never use the gauge for anything but setting it, since it's mounted in the box. You can always do a clear lid if you want, or mount the gauge outside the box, but I figured if I'm having brake issues, it's just a few screws to open the box and I like everything being contained in there and so I know nothing in the trunk can mess with the brake system. I listed the McMaster-Carr part numbers for the muffler, gauge, and valve on the schematic. Also note that you point the valve in the direction the pump will suck. It will be labeled, but you can always check it by sucking on one end of it (don't blow, some valves don't reliably work the other way to pressure vs. vacuum, I've found). The outlet of the pump has to come out of the box so the air has somewhere to go, so this is the part I put outside the box (since the box must be sealed). Then I ran that tube through a hole in the trunk, into a little nook behind my batteries and attached the muffler, then rolled that up in carpet padding to silence it more. 

It's actually decently quiet. You can hear it when you sit in the garage and start the car - this is the most common time you hear it cause nothing else is on and there's (hopefully) not traffic in your garage. Also, the pump will always have leaked out by the time you get to it. I find the vacuum leaks so slowly I can sit for 15 minutes without hitting the brakes before it hits the low trip point and kicks on the pump. When you are driving or have the radio on slightly, you can't hear the pump. It's funny though, cause my wife and I were still shocked by how loud it *seems* but really it's because it's _intermediate_. For example, we make my pump go off, then started her Lexus to compare the noise and it's like her car was deafening. But we've been trained to think that's normal for a car to be that loud - so of course my car seems louder just cause the pump's not on all the time and you don't get used to it. Posting so I don't lose all this...


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## notailpipe (May 25, 2010)

Back to the system...

Build the reservoir out of 4" ABS from a big box store. Very strong, light, cheap, and when you buy the little black ABS "glue" it's completely airtight. Drill and then tap NPT threads for barbs. Another thing I learned from my first version: never use the ABS glue compound to glue in barb threads! For one, it may not actually make a great bond with metal. For two, you'll never get it out again without breaking something. For three, you don't need it, and that's what they invented teflon paste for! You just put a little on the threads and it will (over a long time, like days/months) gel more and more. It seals well right away and the advantage of this is that when you turn on the system, any leaks will pull the teflon paste in to the holes and kinda self-heal any minor leaks. Also you run less chance of dripping ABS glue clogging a hole (had that happen too). So just use the paste. 









Rough placement of where the parts will go in the box (as drawn in schematic):









Now I take a brief aside and mention how to adjust these Square-D vacuum switches. My exact model is a GAW9016. Others should be similar, but make sure it's a vacuum switch, not a pressure switch! I know some people have figured out how to turn a pressure switch into vacuum... power to them, but I didn't do that.

First remove the cover of the little box part. There will be a dust gasket under the cover but things in here aren't actually under vacuum. The bottom right are the N.C./N.O. switch connections, either can be made. I forget which one I used, I guess it depends on what the switch makers considered "normal."  Bottom left is where you adjust hysteresis. Top right ring with grooves is where we'll adjust the top vacuum point.









But first we have to hook it all up...

Here is everything connected and after I mounted the parts and lined the box with carpet padding for sound absorption. Just following the schematic I posted in the previous post. As for wiring, it's pretty simple. You have +12V coming from the Ignition signal. This wire needs to be able to carry a few (8-10) amps. Not shown but outside my box on the red wire I have an inline fuse carrier with this fuse in it. That you _do_ want outside the box, so if it blows you can quickly check it. The other end of the pump goes to chassis ground. Anywhere in series in the circuit you insert the vacuum switch connections to break the circuit. For this part, you want to find connections on the switch that are closed, because you haven't hooked anything up and shouldn't have a vacuum yet, you want essentially the pump to be on right now. That closed connection should open when the vacuum hits the high point, which shuts off the pump. Once your circuit is hooked up you can test it with the current hysteresis points. Note that your high point may be so high your pump can't achieve it. If this happens your pump will run forever which it isn't designed to do, so if it runs more than a minute, disconnect the fuse. If it is able to achieve the level, you should see it pump up, watching the gauge climb, and then stop at some point. Then you should *not* be able to see a leak on the gauge, if there is one it should be so slow it lasts 5-10 minutes without pumping. Then sit in the car and hit the brakes a few times and it should kick on again. When this is working we can adjust it.


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## notailpipe (May 25, 2010)

Once you are ready to adjust, you twist this ring with a screwdriver to set the high point. Try not to damage it too much, it can be hard to twist. I don't think you want to lubricate it though because you don't want road vibration to adjust your settings.










Then using a screwdriver, adjust the differential vacuum here. For example, if this was set to 5" Hg and your top end was 22", then it would turn off at 22" and turn back on when it dropped down to 17".










Put some more noise-absorbing carpet pad on the top, and some caulk to seal the top. (Also probably want to line the tire well with padding - these things are loud!










Put the top on and you're done!


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## swoozle (Nov 13, 2011)

Yow, that's a $300 switch! There isn't an equally robust, more cost-effective solution?


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## notailpipe (May 25, 2010)

1. Mine was $100, and I'm seeing similar on eBay. $75 used, $150 new. Used is fine, they are very well made.

2. It would be worth even $300 for the reliability (hence safety) plus there is a lot of value to being able to adjust the hysteresis amount. I bought one of the $35 switches you see around here that has 3" Hg of hysteresis. My pump was on/off every 2 seconds, sometimes it was even unstable, flicking on/off at like 10Hz. If you don't want your EV ridiculed, you will want more than 3" of hysteresis. Learn from my mistakes!


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## swoozle (Nov 13, 2011)

Thanks, that makes more sense. Note to self: Don't buy new switch from Allied. Don't know why I didn't check ebay, it isn't like I'd buy a new $500 IGBT...


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## notailpipe (May 25, 2010)

It's been a long time since I posted any updates, and I've been thinking about the car a lot lately so I figured it was time. I'll try to keep things short though. I've been driving the car since last December and most of the "updates" I'm posting are still things I did last year to it, just lagging far behind. The car has mostly been done except for a few minor things I'll point out later.

First of all, I wanted to post a picture of this tool that I used frequently toward the end of the conversion. I managed to live without one but once I had one any custom shapes I had to trace were so much easier. Basically you just make a template shape with the tool and then trace the shape onto the piece to cut. Pretty self-explanatory with a picture. Here's me tracing an (old) version of my brake pump solution. This was when I was testing out the Audi/VW brake pumps (loud):










Another thing that's since been added is clear plexiglass covers over all the battery packs to protect people from getting shocked and to protect the batteries from damage due to metal objects dropped on them or from liquids. Here is the rear rack, complete with stickers off eBay:










And similar for the front packs:










I also added an underbelly plastic cover underneath the car to reduce aerodynamic turbulence and drag. I templated it up with cardboard first. The holes go around the rear suspension pivot points and the slits align the underbelly pan to the rear battery box protection angle iron:










The template transferred to coroplast (would get something a little tougher next time around). Extremely slick!


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## notailpipe (May 25, 2010)

Finally, converted the old gas fill neck hole to a 120VAC plug and had a little fun with the old "unleaded gas only" sign


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## notailpipe (May 25, 2010)

Then work began on the body work and paint job. In the end we hired someone professional to do most of the work (repairing door/hail dings, sand, prime, paint) but we did a little prep work ourselves. 

Taping off the car to restore the trim to OEM black (instead of sunfade black):









Door trim restored:









This picture represents everything that was wrong with the car cosmetically. Note the hugely cracked, barely intact windshield. It was already cracked several long cracks from highway rocks, but then removing/installing the dash we pressed against it several times, cracking it further. Inside, you can see the ghetto universal seat covers from Walmart. I eventually replaced these with some (expensive!) but nice looking seat covers made by a company right here in Colorado. Not sure if I have any pictures of the new one, but it's custom made by hand to stretch over a CRX seat perfectly (they sell all types of models of cars). In the end that was the way to go as I'd wasted enough time trying to put racing bucket seats or Honda Accord seats in there instead, but the seat rails never aligned and it was going to be a lot of welding. The custom covers were less work. Lastly, you can see the fading paint job, particularly on the roof. 









Professional bodywork begins:









He pulled out the sheet metal where someone had backed into my rear fender panel. Unfortunately on the CRX the rear fender is one piece with the main body so you need to pull dents, you can't replace the panel alone. He was able to pull it, smooth it, and fill the rest. You can't even tell it ever happened. Amazing. 



























Finally, the aftermarket hood I bought is prepped and painted. This is the last picture I have of the work-in-progress painting.









That's all for tonight, I'll post some pictures soon of the final product!


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## Ellrot (May 17, 2010)

"Nice one brother"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CpgX1pxcizc, this is gonna look propa tidy when finished!!!


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## dtbaker (Jan 5, 2008)

looking really good!

- I used 1/8" ABS for underbelly.... very tough, and is heat-formable as well as heat-weldable and/or gluable.

- what area of eBay did you find the high voltage stickers?

- Questions: what is the name/website of the custom seat cover place? My miata has leather seats with split seams and worn bolster on drivers side. I am contemplating light race seats, but that gets pretty expensive...


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## notailpipe (May 25, 2010)

dtbaker said:


> looking really good!
> 
> - I used 1/8" ABS for underbelly.... very tough, and is heat-formable as well as heat-weldable and/or gluable.
> 
> ...


I would do ABS if I did it again. I think at that time I was grossly overbudget and went for the cheapest thing. It's actually holding up pretty well, it's corrugated as you probably know. Just feels a bit cheap working with it.

Just do a search on the main page of eBay for "high voltage stickers." I just did right now and the ones I got for my battery covers and for the fuse/junction box are both on the front page of search results. 

GT Covers made the seat covers. Highly recommended, and I believe they're guaranteed to fit money back for 90 days or something like that. After all the time I wasted trying to get other seats in there, it was less than an hour to just buy the custom seat covers. They're not cheap though, but worth it in time.


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