David's Solectria Force Rebuild

[TheSGC]

I've been a way for a while but now I'm back and tomorrow morning I'm going to another junkyard to pickup the replacement headlights. With any luck the Solectria will be good to go by the end of next week!

My plans for tomorrow are to remove the bent fender and bend it back into shape, install the new headlights and give the car one last coat of paint for this year.

I still have to do an extensive cleaning of the interior but I should be able to register it soon.

[TheSGC]

The Solectria Force is all back together!


Last weekend we finished putting the headlights in, the bumper on and did a serious clean on the interior. It's ready for road testing so this week I am going to register the car.

I'm really pleased with the paint job, there is a really nice shine to it. I will probably put two more coats on next year, the weather is just too cold now.

I also need to get new tires for the Force, the ones I have are extremely dry rotted and I don't want to drive on them.

[MetroMPG]

Congrats! It does look shiny. Nice colour choice, too.

[TheSGC]

The Force is on the road!

Last week I was able to get the EV plates and this past weekend I got new 13" wheels and the inspection completed!

I've done a few trips with the Force and it is running pretty well. I've done a few 5 mile trips around town without using too much AH from the pack.

The Force is very underpowered when it comes to hill climbing. When starting on the bottom of a hill the car is really pokey until it's past 5-7 MPH, then it will start to accelerate at an OK rate. In comparison, my Civic EV has more than 5x the power when accelerating. I do have a UMOC440 inverter that is more powerful that I might install. But I think it's just something that I will have to get used to.

The heat is running in the car and just about everything is operational. The Air Conditioning needs recharging and sometimes the FWD/REV needs to be moved back and forth, but I believe that's a controller issue.

[MetroMPG]

Congratulations!

Regen is working? I envy that feature the most.

[TheSGC]

Originally Posted by MetroMPG

Congratulations!

Regen is working? I envy that feature the most.

The REGEN is working and it's really decent in my hilly area. I actually think the high current of the REGEN is helping rejuvenate the NiMH cells I'm using. The cells should have at least 40 AH of capacity, and with time will probably eek out more. Most modules had 57+ AH when I cycle tested them, and they got stronger with each charge cycle. These batteries were never over worked, just sat for years.

With practice, I can nearly use REGEN braking for entire drives. It's quite powerful, and it's really easy to vary the levels of it.

My total cost for this entire project : $2,000 USD!

[MetroMPG]

$2k is awesome. Congrats again!

[Daox]

$2k is amazing. Im jealous yet again of your EV(s)!

[HyperMileQC]

I had not seen this thread until now, wow TheSGC, you did a real good job on the Solectria! Subscribed .

Can't wait to see it running perfectly like your other project, the civic EV.

[TheSGC]

I've been doing some driving with the Force and so far it can do an easy 10+ miles. It's definitely much slower than my Civic EV, but it still drives around just fine. It does struggle on the hills around here, dropping from 35 MPH to ~32 MPH, but not too bad.

I am looking into upgrading the AMC320 to the UMOC440, I just need to locate the ignition +12v wire in the Force. That will allow me to upgrade from 28 KW peak controller to 37 KW peak, which should help with the hills. A few years ago I calculated that 32 KW is needed to handle some of these nasty hills at the speed limit.