Here's what I have been up to lately.
Also, since I was tearing everything out, I took out the passenger seat.
I am starting to appreciate how easy everything is to work on in a Metro. I just pulled out 5 bolts, all with the same head size (12mm, same as EVERYTHING on this car) and the seat pops right out!
With all that additional space, there isn't a whole lot stopping me from just setting more batteries right in there!
I also tried the TURBO again. On the one straight and flat stretch on the way to the bank, I hit the turbo - this time in 3rd gear to limit current.
The ammeter shot up to the 300 amp limit, but after a few seconds, started coming back down into the range of the ammeter.
The car briskly accelerated to 45 mph, and then I had to let off of it because of the speed limit there.
So, using a lower gear to limit amperage with the turbo does seem to work, but it's still pulling more amps than my batteries are really happy with. Once I get another six batteries in parallel, the amperage per battery will be half, and it shouldn't be as bad.
I also sketched out on paper what I would need for cables to add six more batteries in parallel.
I believe that I would need 7 new short cables. To spring 6 batteries in series, you need 5 cables to connect them. And I would need two more cables to make the parallel connection to the other half of the pack, one cable on the negative end, and one on the positive end.
Seven cables with two ends each means I need to get my hands on 14 terminals and a crimper. I still have plenty of heavy welding cable to use to make cables, just no terminals.
To make it into a 144V pack, I think I only need to reverse half the existing cables, but I don't think I need to get any new ones!