Why I wasn't posting...

I didn't want to jinks anything.  However my car has reached that stage where I had to pick my batteries.

• Lead acid would be cheap, and workable.  
• AGM has come down in price, and they have 'good' performance.  

But that I wanted was...

• Lithium.  

But could I; a humble shady-tree mechanic possible afford (and get) what I knew I wanted.

Some background.  AC motors and converters COULD be run as a 'low' 114 volts DC.   And the lead acid folks run at that voltage.  It doesn't leave much head-room; but it works.

AC motors scale directly to voltage.  The more volts, the more efficient the motor works.  This is why Tesla runs their Roadster with an insane number of batteries.  They want the voltage as high as possible, while keeping the Ah around 60 (I don't know the actual layout math for Tesla, but if I was a betting man).

So I knew I didn't want to run at just 114V (36 cells).  Also the folks over at Azure (the makers of my inverter) had already said that between 114V ~ 205V they have a kind of dead zone for how well the 440 works.  Mine was already programmed and rated at 364V max, 312V normal.  So it was on the other side of that dead-mans valley.

However anyone with a calculator out there is saying, wait a minute... that's 98 cells!  You can't fit that many batteries into that car.

Enter Sinopoly.  They bought Thundersky; and earlier this year announced the SP-LFP60AHA(B).  A 60 amp hour cell half the size (36mm thick instead of 61mm).  And; they said, at the same cost. Cost at the time for a TS60Ah was running about $1 an amp hour.  Could Sinopoly be serious?

I called for a local distributor; and was told they wanted to sell directly to the end user (from China).  They would drop ship to a local port (I'm on the west coast); but they also had a courier service that would deliver (for an additional fee) right to your door.

E-mails and money wires followed...

I now have 109 60Ah batteries to test, balance and install!  That's 348V for those playing along at home.

Not the Beiber

Just when I thought it was safe to drive again...

I'm sure it wasn't going to suddenly stop.
It sure is a fine looking car. Too bad it's not 100% electric.

Too big for my britches?

Well I buttoned up the transmission and motor. Now I can sit back and wonder, "Maybe the I could have gone with the AC-24 after all."

Nah....

I'm sure it will still fit...

On a sad note; I just got word that Azure (formally Solectria); where I got my motor and controller, has chosen to close their doors. They make one of the most robust and AFFORDABLE AC systems out there (I'm looking at you AC Propulsion). It's too bad, I feel the market was just coming around.

Fewer parts.

One of my helpers called me out on finishing the transmission. So we buttoned that up.

Getting unhinged

Here's a collection of the pivot joints I installed.

New look

I had to apply a new look to the blog. I found out that the ISP that was hosting some of the look and feel for the classic version I used was shut off on the 8th. So images were not coming up, and navigation was all wonky.

So hopefully this new version will have more longevity.

Why eBay was invented.

If for no other reason than to provide a source of the euro-style turn signal.

Boy they look good.

As long as I mentioned painting.

I had to replace one of the front turn signals; and E-Bay is your friend. We had some hot weather here so I was able to strip and paint the new signal.

Silver is the new black. Well no not really. Rust-O-lium can only come in black. And I'm almost done with the odd can of shinny; everything else on the car was done in flat black. But of course the one can left when I needed it was shinny (and 33% bigger).

This is just a cosmetic silver; but the lights shouldn't get so hot as to cause any trouble. Unlike say the transmission.

The reason for making sure everything is nice a reflective is so that the LED lights that will go in here don't have a big issue with being too dim.

Did I mention the big ticket item I splurged on for the front of the car?

So I have a spare pair of slightly used (one more than the other) of old orange signal cover.

Don't believe me when I say I'm working...

Wow no update since April. That must really be tough work I'm doing... Well it did make a hug mess; and I'm 10 gallons of cleaner later. But here's the rebuilt transmission prior to reassembly.

Finally done with the cleaning and alignments and the seals.

I'm trying to locate some high temp silver spray paint so once it's all bolted together I can give it a nice coat.

Back to black

Black on black doesn't photo too well; but this weekend I got to work on putting the drive train in. Apart from the getting the transmission joined to the motor the whole assembly has to be mounted into the car. The rear will make use of the existing transmission mounts.

But the front of the motor has to be supported. So I'll re-task the forward engine mount.
But it had to be cleaned (which required it to be repainted as well).
I'm not sure where my hex-nut/allen 3/4 inch driver went, so the assembly hasn't been tighted up yet; but here's the dry fitting.
Does that look like 1.70" +/- .01 of an inch? Did I mentioned I can't find my caliber ether?

Oh MY!!!

In the deep voice of Mr. Sulu! OH MY!!!

Look what I found on my doorstep...

22 lbs of aluminum and steel .

I got my adapter plate!

It's everything the I wanted; milled to perfection. The hub adapter fit 'like a glove'.

It may have been a heck of a wait. But Electro-Auto continues the earn their reputation of quality. There is a chance that the stand off ring might be too long, but that I can get shortened locally.

Of interest: the instruction now ask the the clutch plate and clutch be balanced (and lightened) by a local machine shop. I guess the number of vibrating 914's has been noticed.

In my case I think it might be the rear bearing in the transmission that might be bad. But regardless; it's great that they are including the new steps.

Ironically now that I have the part I been missing for a year; I don't have any free-time till me and my Uncle get some paperwork done.

Look what I found!

I went to a local Nissan dealership to pick up some information; and guess what they had on the lot?

A brand new Leaf. They had gotten two, and dropped one of them off the previous night. But the second was still there. Waiting in the rain.

The sales women was very nice and got the keys and let me and my girl take a look. First of all it was very well built. And look like a completely normal car (which you would expect).

Lots of room in the back. It was interesting to see it in person; after having read a couple of blogs that talked about how boring a car it looked. I didn't get that at all. I guess I haven't purchased enough Italian cars yet, to get a sense that a nice new five door hatch-back is boring.

I will note that the bug-eye front lights are far 'more' than I had expected. I don't think my camera phone did them justice. They are REALLY 3D!!! I had known that they are big. I didn't know that they actually raised up out of the cars.

The photos I had always seen kind of showed them flush with the car; they're not. It would be interesting to see more cars with forward facing fins! (Yes bring back cars with fins on them!)

Junk in the trunk.

Not the most original title for a post. I'll grant you that. But none the less. This post is all about the trunk.

For whatever reason, Porsche thought that having a overly complex hinge was a good idea for the rear trunk. So they came up with fantastically over tensioned rods to provide counter weight. Under-sized tack wielded joints, and a small rear trunk to boot. See what I did there? Boot in what the English call the trunk (or at least Jeremy Clarkson on Top Gear does).

Anyway when I got the car, the previous owner had MacGyver'd some strange solution (that involved roller blade wheels) to correct that the trunk joints had torn loose.

So the REAL repair is to replace the joint with something strong, and get rid of the bars in favor something current (like say a couple of hydraulic jacks.).

So first, Get help.

Then grind down the old wields.

Both sides, or course.

Some paint, some bolts. And viola'

These are some parts I bought when I first got the car; since I saw the state the trunk was it. So it's kind of nice to finally get to use them. Up next the hydraulic arms (seriously).

Where the Dear and the Antelope play...

I've been waiting for a part I've order (last MAY) to come in. It's the adapter plate, connects the motor to the transmission. And since I'm not sure what the dimensions are, I can't really fabricate around it.

So it looks like I'm going to be doing far more restoration work on the car then I had thought. As you might guess, it's better to fit parts into the cars, then restore around the new dimensions.

Since the rust had to be dealt with and then the car painted (because of the climate), I was willing to give somewhat on that timetable.

It now appears that I'll have to do more. And hope everything fits later.

So I added a little power toy to the lab.

Thanks 'Bro

My bother was asking about what I had planed on using for the high AMP DC wiring; when I mentioned 0/2 wielding cable. He said while that would be good, what I should really use is this cable they have at the studio. "It's totally better."

Well I took him up on his offer, if he had any, I would love to get some. So the other day he stopped by here at GZL, and dropped off what I can only call the best cable I have ever seen for this application. The shear perfection of this cable dictates how I'm going to run the DC now. It's going to be awesome.

So much the slacker

What's in the bucket? Not a list. The business end of a manual transmission more like it.

I like to follow the 914ev group on Google; and try to head problem off at the pass. One of the common problem with the 914 conversion is the RPM's. Mainly how many there are. The 30 year old 901 transmission just isn't up to +5,000 RPM. And they tend to develop a rather sever oscillation at the higher RPM's. So this led me to conclude I needed to rebuild the transmission.

So here I am; pulling one apart. I suspect most of the vibrations are from the rear-end bearing. Even though my transmission is is good shape; the 30 year old bearing has quite a lot of play. and at the high RPM, that might not be the best thing.

I'm still not sure about replacing the flywheel with a lighter racing version, but we'll see.

Motor facelift

I got the new part from Azure Dynamics; and a friend came by so I gave the AC 55 a face lift.

As always when dealing with a +200lbs motor, the first thing you want to do is put in on wheels. Next we removed the four long bolts; then applied a hammer to break the poly seal. Once that gave, the front pulled straight off. I was worried the bearing might have found a permanent home in the old face plate. But everything was in great shape.

Motor Porn.

After pulling the old face plate off, I transfered the spring and applied new grease. As always since this motor will be out in the environments (such as it is in CA) I used my preferred marine grease.

Old is green, new is red.

I'll skip the 1/2 hour we took getting the motor cleaned and prepped. However Beth at Azure had checked with one of the motor techs; and let me know a couple of the fins would have to ground down. The power grind took care of the four aluminium fins faster than is took me to correctly spell aluminium (only had to remove a 8th of an inch).

I then applied some poly caulk around the seam of the new face plate and bolted it home.

Looking fierce.

I'm happy to report the motor spins like a dream. Had I known it was going to go so smoothly I would have spray painted the motor black; I figured I'd be opening and closing the motor 4 or 5 times before everything lined up. Maybe I'll give it a little touch up.

Anyone need an old face plate from an AC55 motor? It's only 25lbs...

AC55 Solution!

Woot-Woot! Turns out what I need is NEMA C-Face kit for a AC55!Who knew? Turns out Beth at Azure Dynamics does, and will sell me one. So though I'm not a big fan of cracking the motor open (they're sealed), I am a huge fan of this solution!

So the only remaining mounting question is the forward mounting bracket. I was measuring this weekend; and it's very close to being spot on.

Big toys!

Got my big old motor. I was thinking that maybe this motor is just too big for the car; but then I reminded myself that it is a Porsche after all. And isn't putting a giant motor into a tiny car what Porsche is all about?

Well as you can see it is an AC 55 motor.

Picture from behind. The silver spot is where a temperature sensor used to be. It didn't make it and had been disconnected at some point. So I just removed it.

Now here is what the front should look like (this is from Ross's Electro Jeep blog).

This is what mine look like. Not quite sure how I'll mount the clutch plate and transmission to it. I'm thinking of making some type of adapter ring.

There seems to be enough spline for a number of options. But nothing is leaping out at me. Of course since it's a 200+ lbs motor; I'm going to have to be mindful of stress when it's mounted.

Sorry about the horrible quality of that last shot. It's showing 2" (trust me).