Hey all, my Accent finally bit the dust, and gave me an excuse to pick up a project. I've been a lurker here and on gassavers for a while, and now intend to join the community.
I just purchased a 1993 Subaru Justy. For those of you unfamiliar with the car, it's a compact four door, 3 cylinder on demand four wheel drive with a CVT. I got it for 1000 bucks Canadian. It has 90k on it, but the odometer rolls at 100k,
. The guy claims to be the original owner and doesn't seem like a giant ass, so in the end, who knows....
My end goal is to disconnect the rear axle from the rest of the drive train, and hook up a motor/generator to it with enough battery power for a day of city driving. This will allow me complete battery in the city, regen braking, and optional ICE backup for exhauseted batts/highway. Also, I hope to be able to rig up a system to allow use of combined ICE and electric four wheel drive to help move about in Canadian winters.
I want to create a vehicle that is more efficient and much more capable then anything available commercially at a fraction of the cost.
First things first though, I want to gain control of the CVT. I want to be able to control it manually, and I suspect this will be no easy task. There is very little information available online on this transmission. I haven't even been able to discover the max and min gear ratios yet. But if I am able to gain complete manual control over the transmission, I should be able to drastically increase fuel efficiency with constant acceleration close to best fuel/power ratio and all cruising at the absolute tallest gear. A final gear change my be necessary.
If anyone has any info please feel free. Gotta go now, I'll be back later, and with some pics in a couple days.