After a lot of advice from this board and others I've decided that the endplay on the output flanges can be ignored for now. So..... Let's get this baby back on the road!!!!!!

Here is the B.F.N. tranny mated to the motor. Yep, that's it. Hook two big fat wires to this thing and it goes! No F'n' ignition, valves, carbs, oil, cams, exhaust, etc.....

How many batteries will fit in this thing?

Are you going to use solid bus bars to connect the batteries together? Any figures on how much it costs/mile to charge them? How many miles do you figure you get before having to replace all those batteries? Curious about the numbers.

hey bob91403 try the electro automotive web site. They sell a 914 specific conversion kit and they have some samples and general info about the running costs of an electric.

http://www.electroauto.com/

What he said.... Electro Auto is a great company. By the way, I suggested the 914club be put on his links list. It's right at the top!

Bob - I'm not going to use solid bus bars to connect the batteries. Basically for vibration reasons you want the connections as flexible as possible. I have connectors made out of sheet copper. They can take the amps (500amps or so) but are fairly flexible.

As for cost it's about $2-$3 for a full tank. And a full tank gets me from anywhere between 50-100 miles. It don't pay for any of it though since I charge at work.

YMMV but I expect to get between 15-20,000 miles out of this pack.

I have considered doing an electric build. Are you using electro autos Voltsporsche kit or are you free handing it?

A little of both. I started with their kit. Great stuff! Very well thought out and quite detailed. Anybody that can swing a hammer and miss their thumbs could do it. As I went along I thought of improvements so I upgraded this and that and modified some things. They are great to deal with but don't bother emailing them. I don't think they operate the computer much. Phone calls are the way to go. It took me 3 months of working a little at a time after work. One of the motor heads on this board could probably do it in a weekend.

If I ever get hit in the head by a sack of money, I'm going to upgrade the batteries. There is another list I belong to called the EVDL. We've been following the latest battery developments. If you have the money then there are some real scary battery alternatives. Right now it's only the insane wealthy that can do it but that will change. There is a couple of people on the list that have put in Lithium ion batteries. We're all waiting to hear the long term results.

oh and I see you're down in Florida. There were a few people on the EVDL that were powering their homes from their electric cars during the recent high winds you experienced.

One step forward and about 10 steps back....

First, one step forward... motor and tranny ready to go in

'nother view. That electric motor sticking out there makes this process a bit phalic

... and 10 steps back...

The only thing different this time is the 911 sport mounts. I measured them before the switch and they were only a few thousandths smaller. Where I had about a cm of clearance before now I have none.

Wiskey Tango Foxtrot ... Over?

So it looks like I'll have to move my battery boxes up.

Hmmm that's about 24 bolts (2 boxes), a bunch of sealant, and I gotta fab a bunch of spacers...


Not the least of which, I will lose my ability to put the top in the trunk. I know this is a family website but FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCKING FUCK!!!!!!!

Can't you just space the tranny mount lower to get the clearance? Worth a try before you raise the battery box.
Felix

That's a great idea for the long term. Thanks for the suggestion.

Short term I have about $1000 in batteries sitting on my garage floor that have to get in there and on charge before they die.

I'll have to fab a nice block of aluminum like you have in your pic. I've got to drop the tranny about 1.5 to 2 cm. Perhaps for just today I can add about that much in washers to the 8mm bolts on the tranny mounts.

Will you still have a clutch? Will shifting be normal?
Pretty damn neat.

Yep, clutch is stock. Shifting is normal I just don't do it that often. I like 2nd around town and 3rd on the freeway. (4th if one of you bastards are trying to pass... )

And you, Mr. Evil, are quickly coming up on my list of people to contact. Once this transmission nastiness is behind me, the interior will be needing some work: Dash (or dash pad), seats, etc....

Ok, so I've been laying under the car staring at the situation. I can't just add a bunch of washers to lower the tranny mounts. The darn things are angled so if I lowered them the bolts won't line up. But it's small enough that the new hole would overlap the hole to mount the spacer to the car. Is any of this making sense?

Anyone remember their high school geometry? Anyone have a suggestion?

click the link in his sig to see pics of the magic he worked on my stuff.
ill find a link to my thread

Any thoughts on hybridising? Could you put a honda generator in and reduce the volume of batteries? Trying to keep the range the same, reduce the weight, and have an on board charge source. Could you use the smaller battery supply for around town driving, and turn the generator on only when you needed the extended range? Most trips are not 100 miles. I realize the generator could not keep up with the draw rate. But, there should be a mid-point, battery volume vs. battery volume & generator, that would show an advantage. Are those glass mat batteries?

why cannot you lower the front of the motor/transmission assembly???

couldn't you use the same thing they use for a v-8 conversion? just flip it , so, it doesn't push the tranny back?

In reverse order:

Joe: I might be able to use it if I knew what it was!

Mueller: Probably could actually. Since the front mounts are so far away I think I'd have to lower it quite a bit though. It seems like the tranny is leaning that way already. I was worried about the gear oil situation if it was all sloshed to the front.

Bob: All great ideas. Basically however I think of range for this car differently. For me, the range is ecentially infinite. I only use it around town and to commute. As you pointed out this is way less than 100 miles per day. I don't make many long distance trips period and even fewer in the 914. How many on here drive their 914 over 100 miles/day? (ok, how many of us would LIKE too... ) I have different cars for different purposes. I have a Jeep to get me off road. I borrow a truck when I need to haul big stuff. And I have an electric to get me around otherwise! (the wife's car is for the long trips and carrying the kid ) And no they aren't AGM batteries. They are good ole floodeds. AGMs don't have very much capacity. Somewhere about 1/4th or less.

i drive my 914 100 miles a day, and 200 miles easy someweekend days

100 miles a day? That's a lot of miles. A mixed blessing. Who would want to drive that much a day? And, at least you do it in a teener. Good and bad.

How about big thick washers on the main bolt above the tranny mount (like the one below the tranny mount)?

Those tranny mounts are still rubber. Add a couple of washers, I bet you'll still be able to get the bolts in. I understand what you're saying, I think it just too theoretical.

What about this? it is used to push back the tranny for a v-8 conversion.

you could flip it around and keep the stock position. it should drop the tranny down about what you want.

I'm not sure if that is exactly what you are looking for.

well, i should say, WHEN i drive i drive at least 100 miles a day. my car sits in a parking lot outside my dorm m-thurs and goes everywhere on fri, sat and sun i use a tank of gas every week yeesh!

Well, thanks again for all the suggestions. I'm sure you guys are tired of hearing me say it but, THIS SITE ROCKS!

End result of me laying on my back under this thing for 20 minutes: I'm going to pull the two interfering battery racks and raise them. It's way more work but it's the right answer. All the contraptions I could imagine to drop the tranny mounts ended up sounding like something that would get me put in the DAPO bin.

Mark, yeah at one point I said F' it. I'm going to just try a bunch of washers. It worked for about 1 cm but that wasn't enough. The bolts were all cockeyed after much more than that and I didn't feel good about it.

You know how it is when you do these things: When you finally decide to do it right rather than all the crazy short cuts, it just feels "right". I'm sure we've all been there. As soon as I started to raise the battery racks I knew I was doing the right thing. Keep the tranny mounted the way it is supposed to be mounted.

Thanks again. I'll post more pics when I get it done.

Ok, tonights progess (no pics yet):

Tranny is fully in and torqued down
Shift rod is in
Speedo cable is in (and I noticed a nice little oil leak where the speedo drive comes out yippee!)
Big fat electric pipes hooked up and torqued down
Tach sender hooked up
Over temp relay hooked up

The question of the day is:

After adjusting the clutch cable I have about two threads left. WTF? Is that right?

Gte a 1" length of pipe that fits right over the threaded part. All of the ones that I have seen have this as a spacer.
HTH

Oh, when ever you are ready for the interior I'll be waiting (as long as it is before next Aug.)

I wanna see more pics!

Shannon,
Could you cut out a small section from the bottom of the battery box right above the CV joint to gain the clearance? That angle iron looks fairly thick. Or would there be a problem with the CV joint potentially rubbing on the bottom of the battery?

-Jeff

Bingo. I'll post pictures tonight but basically I'm going to add about 1/2" to 3/4" of spacers to raise the whole battery rack up. It will be pretty ugly at first but the clock is ticking and I just have to get it done. Pretty comes later.

Well, I've had another setback Sometimes this I think this project is going to kill me.

rant mode

I began the process of putting all the batteries in the car. The care and feeding of the batteries is everything to an electric car. You have to pay as much attention to it as you do with your timing or fuel injection in an ICE car. Without going into painful detail that I'm sure none of you care about, I'll just say that my battery vendor was not honest with me. All 20 batteries were supposed to be a matched set. Ok, maybe not "matched" per se but at least all made at the same time. I noticed right away that the date codes didn't match. I mentioned this to them and they said some kind of nonsense like, "well just right it down on the receipt and we'll come back to it if you have any early failures."

I bought into that thinking well, at least it seems like he'll take responsibility if things go wrong.

Tonight I measured the specific gravity of each cell in each battery. 60 cells!!! The specific gravity gives a measure of the state of charge. If they all had the same "born-on date" then they should all be pretty close. Yeah you guessed it. The batteries that had the October dates were great. The September dates were so so and the JULY dates were nearly dead.

No big deal you say. Just charge up the dead ones and get going. Three problems: 1) I don't have a way of charging small groups so I have to do all of them or one at a time. 2) Batteries that have sit around for that long have sulphated a bit. Their capacity will be less than the others. 3) It's not what I F'ing paid for!!!!

rant mode

So the progress picture tonight is an empty battery box.

I'm borrowing this space so that people on the EVDL can see the data.

Big goes to American Battery in Hayward!!!!!!!

They stepped up to the plate without any

Jim is delivering 20 brand new batteries tomorrow. No questions asked.

If anybody is looking for some Optimas or whatever for their 914 they should talk to American Battery in Hayward.

I know the cost would be more, but what about the Gel batteries? Aren't they lighter and last longer?

Great question. They are way lighter that is true but they have WAAAYYYYY less capacity. What they are great for is the high performance EV. Something like Otmar's. They can dump a whole lot of current in a hurry and they don't weigh a lot. I went for more of a yugo performance but huge range. My range is three to four times as much as you would get with the same amount of AGM bats.

The EV guys are always talking about the lead to steel ratio. If you want range you want a high lead to steel ratio. If you want acceleration then you want a low lead to steel ratio. My car is refered to as a lead sled. <_<

Ah, that makes sense now.

Well, as the years progress, so will battery technology. So I would only imagine your 914 will loose wieght over the years.

The future is here for the b'stards with money. The Li-ion batteries look really good right now. Crazy energy density. My car would end up lighter than it was as an ICE and get about 300 miles/tank. The cost is scary however. Multiple tens of kilo bucks.

I guess the other cool stuff is what does an electric car really need? (Save wieght sort of thing). No more gas tank, fuel lines, exhaust. I guess you would have to live w/o a heater. All in all, I would imagine your 914 probably wieghs about 2300lbs with it's current set up? Just a wild guess though.

This is a cool thread.

It's even more dramatic with some newer cars. No radiator, water pump, emissions crap, the list goes on an on...

What has been an interesting topic of late on the EVDL is what to do about the new computers. So much of the stuff is driven by that little computer. If you remove the engine and emissions stuff the computer will think you have serious problems and may or may not drive the all electronic dash! No signal from the fuel injection and you may not have a tach as a side effect. Hell the air bags might just decide to randomly fire just out of spite!

I 'borrowed' a lot of the existing 914 wiring to save on running new wires around. That's no so easy with the newer cars.

I'll let you know about the weight in a couple of days when I'm on the road. I'm going to drive it over to the scales to get it weighed. Also going to put it on a dyno to have a look at the torque. It won't be pretty but I'd just like to know where I ended up. Otmar has got some scary 800 ft-lbs or something but mine will be pretty close to a yugo-ish.

Yes!!!!!! I've got batteries!!!! All freshly minted on FRIDAY!!!! Yes, they were raw materials on Thursday last week!

All except the back two (for reasons I've mentioned above) are in the car. I'll spend tonight making all the connections.

I'm gonna drive this thing this weekend!!!!!

Before:

After:

Front:

good on ya! Thats freaken cool.

Remember the mantra:

This is not tedious.
THIS is not tedious.
This IS not tedious.
This is NOT tedious.
This is not TEDIOUS.
...


(Had to get the manditory foot in the picture)

This rocks! Can you post a pic of the 914 when it is back on the ground?