Decisions, decisions.

Hello again everyone,

With it being summer, I have been enjoying a bit more time than usual to work on the car. Since my last post, the adapter plate has been finished, and several other bits and pieces have been ordered.

I got a new guibo (rubber flex disk that is bolted between driveshaft and transmission) from Bimmerworld because the old one was in need of replacement. I decided to temporarily get rid of power steering, just in the interest of getting the car driving as quickly as possible. For that, I bought a machined block of UHMW from Condor Speed Shop. Here it is installed:

And finally I put in my order for 452 A123 amp20m1hd-a cells. 432 will make it into the final pack (4 parallel cells and 108 in series)  and the order has room for duds and a 12 house battery from lithium cells. The cells should arrive within the next few weeks. Once they do, and I'm able to get a better idea of what the pack layout in the car will be, I'll go ahead and order an Orion BMS unit.

Adaptation

The last few weeks have been pretty crazy with school and this project and everything else, but I've managed to get a few things taken care of. First, I bought a OEM BMW e34 spec M5 clutch disc and e36 M3 pressure plate with a lightweight aluminum flywheel made by UUC. This will replace my stock dual mass flywheel, changing the weight from 27.5lbs to 8.5 lbs. From the factory it's balanced to 11,000 RPM, which is good because my motor is capable of spinning up to 10,000 RPM.

Next, I bought a chunk of aluminum for the motor-transmission adapter plate. I oversized it, because I wanted to make sure there would be enough material, so I ended up buying a 2'x2'x0.75" chunk of solid aluminum. Last week I took it down to a machine shop near where I live with the motor, transmission, clutch and flywheel kit, and some other small components and explained what I needed done. As it turns out, some other EV enthusiasts in my area had commissioned similar work from this shop, so the guys there knew exactly how to make an adapter plate. I'm waiting for them to finish up projects they had backed up, but I'll post again when I hear from them.

Finally, I bought a charger. Since I'm pretty much set on using A123 amp20m1hd-a cells, I decided that a Manzanita Micro PFC-30 charger would be the right size for charging my car. Expect another post when it gets here.

That's all for now. It's time for me to get back to reading the user manual that came with my car.

Motor and Controller Have Arrived!

I am happy to announce that the heart and soul of my electric car have both arrived! The Rinehart Motion Systems PM100DX controller arrived on March 16th at 4:25pm, and then the Remy HVH 250-090-P motor with the AM Racing housing arrived today, March 27th at 3:50pm. 

Here you can see the adaptor that bolts on the the BMW flywheel used in the Z3.

 I'm working on tracking down an adapter plate (for mating the motor to the transmission) to speed the motor install up, rather than paying someone to build it custom. Bob Simpson over at EVdrive sells this exact motor and controller combo as a pair, and offers support for it. In his prototype/test mule car, he uses the same transmission bell housing and same motor as I'm using, so the adapter plate he had built will also fit on my car.

Arriving soon are a UUC Lightweight clutch and flywheel kit, a coolant pump, a vacuum pump (for breaks), and a DC/DC converter.