Open Source Civic EV Kit

JUNE 5, 2009

Over the past few days, the car has still been lurching around despite the potbox parameter adjustments that I've made inside the controller. Yesterday in stop-n-go traffic, the car was lurching again and the controller faulted when I haphazardly floored the accelerator with the car out of gear. angle iron 4" long to mount it.

Installation 100

Installation All-Electric Engine Cars 100

Open Source Civic EV Kit

FEBRUARY 12, 2009

This has been my third week of commuting and I've got 550 miles on the car. I sold my other EV (Porsche 914 at 914ev.blogspot.com ) last Sunday, so I'm glad to not have three cars to deal with and the associated insurance. I'm going to take a break now and just enjoy driving the car, hopefully without too many charging issues.

Charging 100

Charging Porsche Light Miles 100

Open Source Civic EV Kit

DECEMBER 6, 2009

Well, the car's back on the road again. In fact, I almost did it again yesterday when driving the car over to a friend's place. In fact, I almost did it again yesterday when driving the car over to a friend's place. The car is a bit older and doesn't have an alarm when you leave the headlights on when turning off the ignition.

Batteries 124

Batteries Battery Motorcycles Connect 124

Open Source Civic EV Kit

JUNE 11, 2008

Ground to rear-right fender: 25.25" Ground to rear-left fender: 25" Distance between two rear shock towers in the trunk: 36" 10" rear of the trunk shock towers, the trunk widens out to 39" It looks like the car is slightly tilted to the left, with the left fenders closer to the ground than the right ones. Heavy driver wearing out the springs?

Oregon 100

Oregon Gasoline-Electric Clean Cleaning 100

Open Source Civic EV Kit

JUNE 15, 2008

seconds, but we agreed that I wasn't pushing the car much. I'm sure many other folks could do better than this, but I wouldn't want to push the car much further. You can see his cars at MilnerMotors. The first run took 12.70 The second run was goofed by slow traffic. The third was fairly indicative at 10.33 Cheers, Tim.

Portland 100

Portland Electric Vehicles Cars Vehicles 100

Open Source Civic EV Kit

DECEMBER 29, 2008

I'd like to get the car off the jack-stands and back into a position where I can drive it while still adding things like the guages. After installing the speed sensor, the last thing needed under the car is the splash guard to protect water and grit from getting into the Warp9. The front of the car is to the right.

Installation 100

Installation Water Cars 100

Open Source Civic EV Kit

OCTOBER 3, 2009

Over the past week, I've been driving a gas car because I had long errands after work that would have exceeded the maximum range of the Civic-EV. If I stop commuting with the electric vehicle, that takes away 90% of my driving, which makes owning the car somewhat pointless. The first thing I'm going to do is install a PakTrakr monitor.

Range 113

Range Lithium Ion Installation Miles 113

Open Source Civic EV Kit

DECEMBER 17, 2009

Here's Nissan's spokesperson who graciously answered all our geeky questions about the car. Here's the requisite photo op with the Leaf showing the charging plugs at the front of the car. It arrived at OMSI this morning and the OEVA got a private session with the Leaf this afternoon.

Nissan 100

Nissan Personal Portland Plug-in 100

Open Source Civic EV Kit

OCTOBER 10, 2008

I had to decide whether to cut the tail shaft or cut the car chassis. After raising the motor back into the car, there are no more clearance issues. Back in this post , I discovered that the tail shaft on the Warp9 motor was interfering with the driver-side chassis. Here's my cut line on the tail shaft of the Warp9.

Motor 100

Motor Motors Motoring Cars 100

Open Source Civic EV Kit

DECEMBER 14, 2009

After the car sat for 20 minutes, I had enough juice to get to the auto parts place. We'll, I picked up the car from the auto-parts place, drove to my appointment and plugged in. Without the DC-DC converter to charge my 12V battery, my car would die quickly with the headlights on at night. Happy Holidays!

DC 100

DC Volt Plug-in Plug 100

Open Source Civic EV Kit

AUGUST 22, 2009

After opening the hood and running the fan on the controller for 15 minutes, the car finally started to move forward without faulting. Fortunately, two wonderful people helped me push the car to a near by parking space across some local light rail tracks (we had to dodge the MAX light rail, yikes!). I made it almost home.

Dodge 113

Dodge Oregon Kits Installation 113

Open Source Civic EV Kit

JUNE 21, 2009

I plugged in the car and the circuit had an interaction with the optocoupler on the BatMon board and didn't see the correct signal. It's a good thing I just got back from my mindfulness meditation session or I would throw a wrench at the car. I'm so angry at this charging system! God, I'm pissed!

Plug-in 100

Plug-in Charging Plug Miles 100

Open Source Civic EV Kit

JUNE 1, 2008

This is a bit of a dilemma because I only have a one-car garage and my current electric vehicle (the Porsche 914) is sitting in it, charging up. I'm pretty gung-ho on the Civic project at this point and not having a physical donor car (glider) is a significant hindrance. In the long run, I'll probably (gasp!)

Neighborhood 100

Neighborhood Google 2000 Porsche 100

Open Source Civic EV Kit

JANUARY 30, 2009

With the front suspension coil-overs installed, I felt much more confident in driving the car around without bottoming out. Around 48% remaining, the LVP protection on the Belktronix system kicked in and the car slowed to a crawl of 15-20 mph. I also noticed that the car was filled with a burning smell.

DC 100

DC Juice Installation Charging 100

Open Source Civic EV Kit

DECEMBER 3, 2008

One of my goals for this kit was to utilize as much of the existing infrastructure of the car as possible in terms of fuses, relays and wires. The whole circuit was powered when the driver turns on the key, so the pump won't run with the car is parked. Both the pump and switch are fuse protected by existing fuses in the car.

Kits 100

Kits Connect Connected Power 100

Open Source Civic EV Kit

DECEMBER 3, 2008

Here's the same fuel tank lid, but under the car. This shows how I routed the OVP/LVP cables along the underside of the car towards the fuel line brackets. This shows the OVP/LVP cables coming out of the brake line run at the front of the car and going up into the engine compartment.

Plug-in 100

Plug-in Plug Fuel Connect 100

Open Source Civic EV Kit

JUNE 28, 2008

Before we begin, we need to jack up the front of the car and put it on jack stands to keep the car stable during the removal process. Here is the front car up on 6-ton jack stands. After the car is up on jack stands, give it a good shake to make sure the raised car is stable. Remove the front splash shield.

Parts 100

Parts Engine Oil Fuel 100

Open Source Civic EV Kit

APRIL 8, 2008

Here are some shots from Car #1: This car had the whole front end cut off of it! Here's a shot under the car on the left side from the rear, just to the left of the spare tire well. Here's a similar shot from the rear of the car but on the right underside of the spare tire well. Here's the trunk space.

Batteries 100

Batteries Battery Engine Installation 100

Open Source Civic EV Kit

JUNE 20, 2008

The car is quite zippy as a gas car and is fun to drive. This keeps water and other road debris out of the car and maintains the structural integrity of the trunk in the result of a rear-end collision. I registered the Civic today at DMV and washed it to get all the grime off. Here's a center view of the trunk.

Deep Cycle 100

Deep Cycle Kits Installation Batteries 100

Open Source Civic EV Kit

DECEMBER 3, 2008

These lines are typically routed under the car in the trough left by the exhaust system. I'll have to add more pictures later of this, but here's a good shot from under the car of the cables inside the radiator hose. He drops by to watch whenever he sees me working on the car.

Neighborhood 100

Neighborhood Exhaust Store Connect 100

Open Source Civic EV Kit

JUNE 30, 2008

Since this part of the car wasn't steam cleaned like the engine compartment, I got complete covered in dirt and gasoline grime. I'm using the floor jack to raise the back end of the car. If I don't use these blocks, I can't raise the car enough to insert the large 6-ton jackstands. You don't store your tires in the house?)

Exhaust 100

Exhaust Fuel Gasoline-Electric Gasoline 100

Open Source Civic EV Kit

JANUARY 25, 2009

The first step is to jack up the front of the car and put it on jack-stands for stability. Since I don't have a spring compressor, I'm going to use the entire car as my spring compressor instead. I rolled a floor jack under the swing arm and raised it until the car just came off the jack stand. Repeat for the passenger side.

Installation 100

Installation Kits Cars Light 100

Open Source Civic EV Kit

MARCH 7, 2009

EV Driven is a group of folks trying to spread the word about EVs and are behind the upcoming movie Revenge of the Electric Car. A few weeks ago, I added an "EV Driven" link to the right menu bar of this blog. It contains several searching features for this blog as well as many other blogs related to electric vehicles. Cheers, Tim.

Electric Cars 100

Electric Cars Electric Vehicles Cars Electric 100

Open Source Civic EV Kit

JULY 19, 2008

I drew a horizontal line from the center of the plastic plug to the side of the car. I measured 1.25" toward the rear of the car and put another horizontal line. After that, I drew a parallel line to that 3/16" towards the center of the car. I then drew a line that "connected the dots" of the spot welds for the main support.

Batteries 140

Batteries Battery Connect Connected 140

Open Source Civic EV Kit

JULY 2, 2008

For the most part, today was the last day of removing parts from the car. From now on, it's all about engineering new parts and installing pre-built ones to make the electric car. On principle, I also ripped out the three fuel lines going towards the rear of the car to the gas tank. Here's the engine that we removed yesterday.

Engine 100

Engine Power Powered Parts 100

Open Source Civic EV Kit

FEBRUARY 4, 2009

With 350 EV miles on the car, I'm ramping down on fixing things and ramping up on commuting. It makes shifting much easier and makes the car feel like a regular vehicle Choosing AGM batteries was a great idea. It makes shifting much easier and makes the car feel like a regular vehicle Choosing AGM batteries was a great idea.

Kits 100

Kits Batteries Battery Parts 100

Open Source Civic EV Kit

DECEMBER 14, 2008

After fixing up the charging system, I took a quick test drive with my friend Jonathan for about 7 miles and the car behaved well. I'll look into that early this week or send it back for repairs. The suspension is still a bit off (rear is 2" high while the front is 1" low), so I'll look into fixing that.

Parts 100

Parts Miles Charging Volt 100

Open Source Civic EV Kit

NOVEMBER 8, 2008

The left edge (towards the front of the car) is 3/4" rearward from the center-lines of the mounting bolts. It's much easier for me to flick the switch to the "OFF" position if I can flip it towards the rear of the car, so I went with the above orientation. Here's the rectangle where the Airpax will be mounted.

Installation 100

Installation IDEA Green Cars 100

Open Source Civic EV Kit

DECEMBER 18, 2008

My employer is forcing everyone to take off the next two weeks to make the financials look better, so I'll have time to wire up the tach and possibly finish the splash guard under the car. Since the roads have been covered with ice, I'm leery about taking the car out and sliding it into a ditch.

Light 100

Light Standards Batteries Battery 100

Open Source Civic EV Kit

JULY 9, 2009

Last week I was mostly on vacation, so I didn't get a chance to really charge the car at full amperage many times. I've charged the car seven times in the summer heat and the charger can dump a full 8 amps into the batteries every time without heating up the charge detector box.

Re-Charge 100

Re-Charge Portland Cheap Charging 100

Open Source Civic EV Kit

JULY 3, 2008

After removing all the gasoline based components from the car, my garage was pretty full of stuff. Here are the leftover fluids from the car. Left is power steering fluid, center is coolant and right is contaminated gasoline with bits of everything in it.

Portland 100

Portland Gasoline-Electric Gasoline Exhaust 100

Open Source Civic EV Kit

JUNE 27, 2008

It turns out that pages 5-20 and 5-21 are missing from the online.PDF version which are the last critical steps involving raising the engine out of the car. I have an appointment with someone this afternoon to see the working Civic engine so he can purchase it after removal from the car.

Engine 100

Engine Google Conversion Purchase 100

Open Source Civic EV Kit

JANUARY 18, 2009

I wanted to make a timer so that I could charge the car for a specific amount of time to prevent over-charging the AGM batteries with the Belktronix charger. The only timer I could easily find that would charge for several hours was a wall-socket mount like the one shown above.

Charging 100

Charging Batteries Battery Cars 100

Open Source Civic EV Kit

JULY 14, 2009

I'm a bit tired of working through issues right now, so if the car drives well, you might not hear from me for a few weeks. I hope to just enjoy driving the car for awhile. One other complaint I received was that the open-source Civic plans were not complete on the Civic-EV Google Group.

Google 100

Google Toyota Motor Motors 100

Open Source Civic EV Kit

NOVEMBER 21, 2008

Here are the measurements I came up with: Rear battery rack: battery 1 to 2: 6" battery 2 to 3: 12" battery 3 to 4: 6" battery 4 to 5: 12" battery 5 to side battery: 14" battery 5 underneath car, through the circuit breaker to the contactor: 16 1/2 feet Front batteries: front battery 1 to 2: 6" front battery 2 to firewall battery 1: 34" firewall battery (..)

Buy 100

Buy Batteries Battery Portland 100

Open Source Civic EV Kit

JANUARY 24, 2009

After driving around a bit, I realized that I never really got over 4000 RPM, so I set the shift point at 4000 RPM, put the car in neutral and slowly pressed the accelerator. It took me down to 45% depth-of-discharge to go 15 1/2 miles, so I'm guessing the full range of the car is really 30 miles or so.

Honda 100

Honda Miles Light Dealers 100

Open Source Civic EV Kit

JUNE 30, 2008

With both the front and back of the car up on jack-stands, I found that the bottom of the transmission is almost perfectly level with the bottom of the front bumper. Now, my garage floor is slightly sloped and the jack stands may not be perfect, but this is good since I'm not moving the car before installing the motor/tranny combination.

Engine 100

Engine Exhaust Installation Purchase 100