1992 Mitsubishi Mirage Electric Conversion

[bennelson]

I am so jealous of that motor and controller. And an engine hoist!

I used a clothesline to pull the engine out of the Metro!

I also love how the leg of the photographer has become that standard unit of scale to show how big a motor is!

[dremd]

Subscribed!

Nice Motor / controller!

Wish you were closer so I could come see.

[Shifty]

MetroMpg thanks for the suggestion for the electric car group. I got the data sheets for the motor and controller from them. Also thanks jasonm for that website I had no idea that there were any sites like that for that car. The good news is that we have at least 2 working dolphin controllers and 1 broken one. 2 others are in crates and are busted. Its almost finals week so i haven't been able to work much on the car however i plan to as soon as my tests are all done.
The car lift is awesome to have for this stuff. Nothing like lifting a car above you and not even having to bend over to work on it. It sure beats working on your car in an apartment parking lot with it driven up on a curb.

[roflwaffle]

Needs more wacky hair, the Mad part of your scientific stuffz is running dangerously low.
on the project!

Originally Posted by bennelson

I used a clothesline to pull the engine out of the Metro!

[Shifty]

Well nothing like a few string of delays to throw a project off track. Between finals and summertime I did not get to work on the car much. However the good news is that one of the reasons I got delayed was due to another EV. I fixed a broken Ford EV Ranger.

Here is the repacked battery


And the truck


Anyway back to the Mirage. I have now made some progress and will continue this thread now.

[bennelson]

Shifty, you can't tease us like that!

Whose truck is that? Yours, or were you fixing it for somebody else!

That's a lot of Yellow Tops in that thing.

[Shifty]

The truck belongs to the University of Oklahoma though I am the only driver as of now. We got two of them from a national park, both were broken. I have one running and am waiting on batteries for the second. Mainly they needed new batteries and repairs to damage from mice living in them.

[Shifty]

Once the engine was removed I cut a plate to mount on the transmission. Here is a picture of the transmission with the plate attached.



The transmission has a 20 tooth male spline which I needed to mate with the motors 20 tooth spline. The main problem was the motors shaft was 1/4 of an inch larger in diameter then the transmission. After looking for a way to do this cheaply I finally had to bite the bullet and pay to have a coupler machined at a shop.

Here is the motor mated to the transmission. A bit of advice for anyone who is going to mate a motor and transmission, spend the extra time to double check the alignment I had to redo it once because of misalignment.

[Shifty]

The motor turns the wheels! We got the motor powered up and turning the front wheels while the car in on the lift. The motor and transmission will have to be adjusted a bit to get rid of a small wobble but otherwise it looks like it will work.

Has any one had any experience stiffening a cars suspension? I am going to be about 600 lbs over weight in the back of the car. The springs as they are now are almost bottomed out.

Here is a picture of the car fully loaded. You can see how bad the sag in the back end is.

[bennelson]

I second the question of stiffening the suspension. My Metro isn't too bad yet, but I am still planning on adding another 400 lbs of lead.

Shifty, do you have any photos of the custom-made coupler? I would love to see what that looks like!