eeVee Motors 2001 Civic conversion is running
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Jerry Pohorsky
Jun 12, 2010, 3:49:19 PM6/12/10
to Civic EV Kit
Howdy,
I joined this group over a year ago when a few local (Silicon Valley)
EAA members got together to convert a car. We were thinking that
since (at that point) the Chevy Volt was over a year away, and the
Leaf and Coda had not been announced, that there was a profound lack
of freeway capable EVs for sale.
We decided early on to do a Civic and I subscribed to this forum to
see what others were doing.
After a while, we decided that some of the core ideas of the kit being
discussed were too limiting for our purpose - which was to make a car
that we could sell without apologies for low range, low performance,
etc.
Yes, this meant a more expensive project and we have not found a buyer
yet, but we are quite satisfied with how it turned out. The car has
decent acceleration and range and the top speed is over 80 MPH. We
are using 96 of the ThunderSky 90 AH cells with a eLitithion BMS.
With a voltage of over 300, we have avoided the lack of power
complaint that I have read about from people who have used the Azure
Dynamics motor in the 914-EV forum and also those who have the
Solectria EV.
The car we chose to convert is a 2001 model that is considered to be
in the 7th generation, I believe. We were concerned that we would
have to deal with the CAN bus issues, but luckily the CAN bus was not
used in the 2001 model. Having a newer model will appeal to more
buyers in our opinion.
We did violate the no-welding rule for the Civic EV Kit pretty
extensively. All of our battery boxes (3) were made from sheet metal
that has welded seams. We used a saws-all to cut openings in the
trunk area and below the rear seat where the gas tank used to be.
Then we welded the boxes into these openings to keep them low. This
allows full trunk space (we did lose the spare tire well, however) and
we were able to put back the rear seat after we shaved off a bit of
the foam rubber on the bottom.
We bought the Azure Dynamics AC24LS motor, DMOC 445 controller and
adapter plate from Mike Brown at Electro Automotive. After we pulled
the motor and transmission, we brought him the transmission to verify
that his pattern matched. The plate itself fit perfectly. One hole
was slightly off, but we were able to use a milling machine to stretch
it out to reach the correct location.
The project has taken a year of nights and weekends since we all have
other jobs. We have driven it to some local shows, but not enough to
do a range test yet. The registration expired on May 30th, so we need
to get a statement from the local smog referee that the car is a zero
emission vehicle before we can get the registration renewed. We need
to trailer it over there since the registration has expired.
Once we have the registration active again, we can begin driving on
longer trips and see what the range is. We are using the original
tires, so if the range turns out to be too low, we may replace them
with low rolling resistance tires. We did restore the original ride
height by adding some spacers to the springs.
There are a couple of issues that we are still working on. We got an
electric power steering pump intended for a Toyota MR2. We are not
very familiar with how the controller for these pumps works, so right
now we have a switch on the dashboard to merely turn it on and off.
The controller that came with the pump has a sensor that is supposed
to fit over the steering column, but we are not really sure exactly
where to mount it. The Honda also has some sort of sensor for the
electronic power steering, but we don't know if it is compatible with
the Toyota controller or which wires from the sensor to connect to
which pins on the controller.
I am also working on using a 2.5 HP treadmill motor and a 240 VAC
treadmill motor controller to run the original air conditioning
compressor. The controller is a transformer-less design, so it can
also run on 300 Volts DC. I plan to test it out later today.
We have a web site for our group project:
www.eeVeeMotors.com
Feel free to make any comments on our website or suggestions about the
power steering. I found an entry on the EV album from someone in
Sacramento who used the MR2 pump, but there was no contact information
for him.
Adios,
Jerry Pohorsky
I joined this group over a year ago when a few local (Silicon Valley)
EAA members got together to convert a car. We were thinking that
since (at that point) the Chevy Volt was over a year away, and the
Leaf and Coda had not been announced, that there was a profound lack
of freeway capable EVs for sale.
We decided early on to do a Civic and I subscribed to this forum to
see what others were doing.
After a while, we decided that some of the core ideas of the kit being
discussed were too limiting for our purpose - which was to make a car
that we could sell without apologies for low range, low performance,
etc.
Yes, this meant a more expensive project and we have not found a buyer
yet, but we are quite satisfied with how it turned out. The car has
decent acceleration and range and the top speed is over 80 MPH. We
are using 96 of the ThunderSky 90 AH cells with a eLitithion BMS.
With a voltage of over 300, we have avoided the lack of power
complaint that I have read about from people who have used the Azure
Dynamics motor in the 914-EV forum and also those who have the
Solectria EV.
The car we chose to convert is a 2001 model that is considered to be
in the 7th generation, I believe. We were concerned that we would
have to deal with the CAN bus issues, but luckily the CAN bus was not
used in the 2001 model. Having a newer model will appeal to more
buyers in our opinion.
We did violate the no-welding rule for the Civic EV Kit pretty
extensively. All of our battery boxes (3) were made from sheet metal
that has welded seams. We used a saws-all to cut openings in the
trunk area and below the rear seat where the gas tank used to be.
Then we welded the boxes into these openings to keep them low. This
allows full trunk space (we did lose the spare tire well, however) and
we were able to put back the rear seat after we shaved off a bit of
the foam rubber on the bottom.
We bought the Azure Dynamics AC24LS motor, DMOC 445 controller and
adapter plate from Mike Brown at Electro Automotive. After we pulled
the motor and transmission, we brought him the transmission to verify
that his pattern matched. The plate itself fit perfectly. One hole
was slightly off, but we were able to use a milling machine to stretch
it out to reach the correct location.
The project has taken a year of nights and weekends since we all have
other jobs. We have driven it to some local shows, but not enough to
do a range test yet. The registration expired on May 30th, so we need
to get a statement from the local smog referee that the car is a zero
emission vehicle before we can get the registration renewed. We need
to trailer it over there since the registration has expired.
Once we have the registration active again, we can begin driving on
longer trips and see what the range is. We are using the original
tires, so if the range turns out to be too low, we may replace them
with low rolling resistance tires. We did restore the original ride
height by adding some spacers to the springs.
There are a couple of issues that we are still working on. We got an
electric power steering pump intended for a Toyota MR2. We are not
very familiar with how the controller for these pumps works, so right
now we have a switch on the dashboard to merely turn it on and off.
The controller that came with the pump has a sensor that is supposed
to fit over the steering column, but we are not really sure exactly
where to mount it. The Honda also has some sort of sensor for the
electronic power steering, but we don't know if it is compatible with
the Toyota controller or which wires from the sensor to connect to
which pins on the controller.
I am also working on using a 2.5 HP treadmill motor and a 240 VAC
treadmill motor controller to run the original air conditioning
compressor. The controller is a transformer-less design, so it can
also run on 300 Volts DC. I plan to test it out later today.
We have a web site for our group project:
www.eeVeeMotors.com
Feel free to make any comments on our website or suggestions about the
power steering. I found an entry on the EV album from someone in
Sacramento who used the MR2 pump, but there was no contact information
for him.
Adios,
Jerry Pohorsky
Tim Kutscha
Jun 12, 2010, 11:16:25 PM6/12/10
to civic-...@googlegroups.com
Hi Jerry,
Thanks for sharing your conversion experience. Congratulations on
finishing your first car with lithium ion batteries and good performance!
From my perspective, I'm happy to hear that other people are converting
cars. While the original intent of the open-source project was to be
inexpensive and require no welding, others have leveraged the idea and
incorporated their own methods, including welding, to meet their own
needs.
I feel that all open-source designs are just a starting point to be
improved upon. Best wishes for your work at eeVeeMotors.
Cheers,
Tim
p.s. If you figure out how to get the MR2 pump working with the Civic,
please share your experience.
Howdy,
Adios,
Jerry Pohorsky
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