Friday, October 29, 2010

Lower intake manifold

Just as the title says, here it is sitting on the ground in front of the car.

And the how the engine compartment now looks with it out.

This pile of parts keeps getting bigger. Soon my whole garage will need to be rearranged to fit everything. 

Math!

Three days ago, my dad cooked up an Excel spreadsheet that will help us keep track of the weight distribution as we add and remove parts. Basically, we will weigh each part we take out, and then measure how far back and how far to one side or the other the part is from the tip of the front bumper. Then all we do is add those measurements into the spreadsheet, and it adjusts the measurements I have from back when I had the car weighed on a set of racing scales. Here's a quick picture of the regular bathroom scale I'll be using.

More progress

Now I have some pictures of the air filter coming out. 
I had to remove the left headlight to gain access to the bolts that held it on.
This is the throttle cable that controlled some valves in the upper intake manifold, which is that grey system of metal tubes on top of the engine.
Here it is with the upper intake manifold out.
I also took out the radiator. It pretty much just lifted out, after the hoses were disconnected.

Monday, October 25, 2010

Air intake sensor

Today I had a few minutes before leaving for school, so I decided to pull out the air intake sensor. Pretty simple, jut one connection and two hose clamps.

Here it is before:

And after:


Looks like the fuel lines will be drained and disconnected next, at least according to the service manual.

Tearing it up


So yesterday was actually the first day of taking the car apart. After a trip to Harbor Freight for jack stands and latex gloves, I got to work. I put the car up on the stands,

disconnected battery and the ignition coil, 



removed the splash guard from underneath the front bumper, 


took off the radiator fan, 

and drained all the radiator fluid.
I filled up two 1 gallon cartons with the green car-juice. So far it's all been prep for the engine pull. Next I want to remove the exhaust system, because it looks like that will free up a lot more space in the engine compartment.



Sunday, October 24, 2010

Hello internet.

Hi, my name is Cory. I created this blog as a way to keep track of everything related to my electric car conversion project. The plan is to take a 1996 BMW Z3, take the internal combustion engine out, and replace everything with electrical components. Once finished, car has to be able to go 100 miles on a single charge, because my dad is going to drive it to work everyday. It also needs to be fast, so it doesn't get laughed at like other "golf cart" ev's, and finally, it needs to satisfy all of the requirements of my Senior Project, which means I have to finish it before I graduate High School in 2012. Let's get started.