Wow a celebrity stopped by my thread! I'm totally geeking out! Sorry I guess I'm a little star struck by the famous Ben Nelson!
Don't mind me I'm just kinda silly (well at least thats what my wife says) Anyhoo thanks for the advice so far.
Yeah I was certainly planning on going with the open revolt controller; besides the fact that it is inexpensive, I think it'll be fun to put something like that together and increase my knowledge of all things electrical. And as far as the batteries my idea at the moment is to hopefully find a marine repair/sales place or some other avenue that would be willing to sell me slightly used batteries at core charge cost. If it can happen to Ben, why not me? :P But I realize that even though the batteries are key and potentially the most expensive part of the project they need to be the last part due to limited shelf life.
I've also been reading about a guy in Utah, John, who when building his EV Toyota pick-up, built his own capacitance charger for a fraction of the cost of commercially available ones so I'm keeping that an open option as well.
So yeah lots to consider and think about. My biggest hurdle right now is I don't have a very large start up fund to work with so finding an electric motor for less than an arm and a leg is important. I know of a shop in town that deals in electric motors, at least that's what it says on their sign out front. So hopefully they can if not provide a cheap one, can point me in the direction of some used forklift motors. Here's to hoping I find something!
-Brad