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Old 09-01-2008, 11:54 AM   #532 (permalink)
bennelson
EV test pilot
 
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Join Date: Jan 2008
Location: Oconomowoc, WI, USA
Posts: 4,435

Electric Cycle - '81 Kawasaki KZ440
90 day: 334.6 mpg (US)

S10 - '95 Chevy S10
90 day: 30.48 mpg (US)

Electro-Metro - '96 Ben Nelson's "Electro-Metro"
90 day: 129.81 mpg (US)

The Wife's Car - Plug-in Prius - '04 Toyota Prius
90 day: 78.16 mpg (US)
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EV Buddies Work Day

Yesterday, a couple of new EV friends came over.

Swee came by, but could only stick around for a little while.

Tom and Royce also came over. Tom is a Master Scrounger who is building his own 300+ volt AC Dodge Neon. Royce is big into robot design.

I gave the all the tour of what I had doing so far on the car.

I expressed my concern about how the motor was mounted in there, not quite right. The motor/tranny isn't quite level, and I can't make the gear shifter reach because of the little bit of twist.

I also have no amp-measuring device on the car, so I have no idea how much energy it is pulling.

Tom and Royce rigged up Tom's home-designed battery monitoring circuitboard device and we went for a ride. First with Tom in the passenger seat (engineering position) and then second, with Royce as engineer.

Something wasn't rigged up right on Tom's ride. We hooked it up right and rode out with Royce. He used his cell phone as a voice recorder and read the readings on the fly while I said if I was accelerating, cruising, or letting off the go pedal.

Both of them said the car sounded pretty good, other then the motor going CLUNK any time I pulled away from a dead stop because of my cheap-o home-brew motor-mount, which needs to be re-done.

We believe the car was pulling around 150 amps while cruising.

We decide the next step is that I really do need to make the motor fit better, so I can level it out. That means somehow shortening the whole thing. I most likely have to shorten the spacers where the motor attaches to the transmission. I may also have to trim a bit off the tail end of the motor housing. This means cutting CAST-IRON!!!!! Supposedly, this can be done with a machinist's mill.

Of course this all means yanking out the motor and transmission again. On the upside, I will keep getting better at it!
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Last edited by bennelson; 09-01-2008 at 12:37 PM..
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