Porsche 914 EV Conversion

OCTOBER 14, 2008

The Porsche 914 has a bunch of "distinctive" features that make it different from many other cars. I've left my turn signal on before, but the combination of the LED tail-lights and the deep-cycle accessory battery kept the car alive. One is the hand-brake being on the left side of the driver's seat (enabling a "racing start").

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Porsche Batteries Battery Deep Cycle 100

Porsche 914 EV Conversion

OCTOBER 8, 2007

I think the transmission is making slightly more noise than before but otherwise the car is fine. The car also seems to be unaffected (so far) by driving in the rain. I do have issues if I get in the car all wet from running through the rain, since my body heat evaporates the water and fogs up the windshield.

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2000 Water Parts Motor 100

Porsche 914 EV Conversion

AUGUST 6, 2007

Things just keep getting better and better with this car. After adjusting the clutch to fully release this evening, the car shifts MUCH better and I don't grind gears anymore! I also took this evening to finish up the wiring for the external charging outlet on the front fender of the car. What a relief!

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Installation Portland Plug-in Charging 100

Porsche 914 EV Conversion

JULY 27, 2007

It responds properly to the accelerator, but at full throttle, the car goes about six inches a second both forward and reverse. Looks like I've got more DMOC parameters to adjust.

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Clean Cleaning Installation Batteries 100

Porsche 914 EV Conversion

FEBRUARY 11, 2007

One of the diseases that plagues the fuel-injected 914 is the difficulty in getting the car to idle under all conditions. It's also started jerking around when first accelerating from a cold start, sometimes rather violently that the whole car shakes back and forth. There must be some expansion going on. We'll keep you posted.

Engine 100

Engine Fuel Parts Cars 100

Porsche 914 EV Conversion

MARCH 2, 2007

My friend Jonathan was in town and helped me go out to pick up some old, sulfated 8-volt batteries from Pacific NW Yamaha Golf Cars. These US-Battery models are the same that are going into the electric car conversion. Bob at NW Yamaha was great and sold me some old 8-volt batteries for $5 apiece.

Batteries 100

Batteries Battery Volt Gasoline-Electric 100

Porsche 914 EV Conversion

FEBRUARY 24, 2007

The 914 doesn't run well at all when its cold and after going to the DEQ, I realized that I'm going to need a lot of work to get the car to pass emissions (it's a rather gross polluter right now). Since I'm working out of a one-car garage (tight!), I need to use only half the handle to jack up the car. ton floor jack.

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Golf Cart Cheap Clean Cleaning 100

Porsche 914 EV Conversion

FEBRUARY 24, 2008

I'm considering taking the car on some slightly longer journeys this summer and don't want to be caught out in the middle of nowhere with a dead battery, so I ran out and purchased a Honda generator that can charge the car for four hours to get a few more miles out of it, if necessary.

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Charging Honda Miles Purchase 100

Porsche 914 EV Conversion

SEPTEMBER 15, 2007

Well, it's time to bite the bullet again and see what I can do about the car vibrations. My friend graciously helped me remove the motor/tranny from the car again this morning and assisted with crude vibration measurements. We removed the motor/transmission from the car and re-attached it to the AC controller wires while on the ground.

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Motor Motors Motoring Porsche 100

Porsche 914 EV Conversion

MARCH 9, 2007

Most of today was spent just taking the car apart. I even went so far as to yank out all the fuel lines that go down the center tunnel of the car. I continued to spend most of the evening disconnecting cables, hoses and wires to allow the engine to be removed from the car. There's no going back to gasoline now!

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Volt Fuel Gasoline Engine 100

Porsche 914 EV Conversion

AUGUST 23, 2007

The car is stranded for the moment until I try replacing the fuse to see what the issue is. Worst case, I can charge the accessory battery with a long extension cord just to get the car home. With the key on, the DC-DC converter light was on; however, when I checked the DC-DC fuse, it was blown. Ugh, goodnight.

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Batteries Battery DC Volt 100

Porsche 914 EV Conversion

AUGUST 7, 2007

Over the past few days, I've gone through the four stages of acceptance regarding the rather noisy vibration that the car undergoes when I rev the motor above 3500 RPM. Denial: "My new electric car is wonderful and it doesn't really rattle above 3500 RPM." Anger: "Why the hell does my car vibrate and rattle about 3500 RPM???!!

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Porsche Installation Motor Motors 100

Porsche 914 EV Conversion

OCTOBER 21, 2007

I was lucky enough to have this option on my car. The wires from the defroster knob sit in their own plastic tube, so it was easy to find the yellow/red wire going towards the center wiring column of the car under the clutch pedal. Here's the travel hair-dryer attached to the heater intake on the passenger side of the car.

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Installation DC Batteries Battery 100

Porsche 914 EV Conversion

AUGUST 1, 2007

In other words: READ THE FRIGGIN MANUAL (RTFM) and understand all the graphs The car was still rather difficult to drive with the regenerative braking happening when I released the accelerator. The car is soooo much easier to drive because it behaves much more like a gas powered vehicle. This worked like a charm!

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Kits Volt Light Plug-in 100

Porsche 914 EV Conversion

FEBRUARY 2, 2007

There are a few minor things to fix, but overall, the car is fantastic. He even had all the paperwork for the car and traced its origin into the country many years ago. I drove it home without a hitch and spent a bunch of time reading the instruction manual (you're not supposed to do that!). This is going to be a totally fun project!

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Cars Vehicles 100

Porsche 914 EV Conversion

JULY 27, 2007

For yucks, I drove the car around the block. Third gear seems to not want to go in, at least while the car is stopped. I got the AC motor to rev up quite quickly in neutral. Both forward and reverse movements are fairly smooth. It has very slow acceleration, probably due to all the battery weight. I drove it in second gear.

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Motor Motors Motoring Batteries 100

Porsche 914 EV Conversion

AUGUST 17, 2007

The car handled very well and cruised on the freeway without much problem. but it powered a huge fan on the back of the car. This is a Honda Civic Delsol conversion done by Chris Brune who helped me understand how to drive my electric car better using lower gears and higher RPMs. Much lower maintenance than the originals!

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Portland Maintenance Honda Waste 100

Porsche 914 EV Conversion

FEBRUARY 8, 2009

I'm sad to see the car go, but I've got the Civic-EV and it does very well. I contacted someone who expressed interest in purchasing the 914 a few months ago and that contact came through for me. Here's my parting shot with Dan, the new 914 EV owner. Dan has worked with a Bradley GT EV before, so he knows the ropes. Farewell 914EV.

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2007 Google Conversion Purchase 100

Porsche 914 EV Conversion

JULY 29, 2007

MaxAccelTorque), I can get get the car running without stalling, but I give up some power. I would think the car would have more pep pulling 400 amps. I would think the car would have more pep pulling 400 amps. With the serial port yanked, I had to push the car back into the garage for more analysis.

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Installation IDEA Plug-in Plug 100

Porsche 914 EV Conversion

FEBRUARY 1, 2007

After thinking about it and talking with some friends, I decided to splurge and spend a few thousand more on a much nicer looking car so I wouldn't have to worry about fixing up the cosmetics. I really like the interior and the car drives well.

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Conversion Parts Cars 100

Porsche 914 EV Conversion

JULY 28, 2007

My first concern was the front of the car bottoming out. Turning the torsion adjustment bolt was far too difficult with all the weight on the tires, so I jacked up each side of the front of the car and tightened both bolts until the center of the torsion bar was about 8 inches above the ground (after letting the front end back down).

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Batteries Battery International Cars 100

Porsche 914 EV Conversion

OCTOBER 14, 2006

Craig, the owner of Camp914, has been working to get the car ready to go over the past few months. I'm looking forward to getting the car soon since the kit from Electro Automotive should be here by mid-January. The picture was taken back on October 14th before it was ready to operate.

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Portland Kits Conversion Purchase 100

Porsche 914 EV Conversion

AUGUST 3, 2007

My friend Pete dropped by for lunch today with his video camera and we captured a four-minute video of the electric car in action as well as a description of the various parts. This is rather unrefined, so enjoy.

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Parts Electric Cars Cars Electric 100

Porsche 914 EV Conversion

MARCH 27, 2007

After squirting all the aluminum and metal caulk around the plate, I realized that I couldn't tighten any of the bolts myself because one end was on top of the car and the nuts were under the car. Big thanks to my friend John for coming over on short notice to help me tighten the bolts before the caulking dried.

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Installation Motor Motors Motoring 100

Porsche 914 EV Conversion

AUGUST 5, 2007

I just have to get used to the concept of driving at higher RPM, since I got better gas mileage by keeping the RPMs low on my old car (which is 19 years newer than the 914 :). I think people experience cognitive dissonance when they see a little red Porsche sports car being the slowest car on the road.

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Golf Cart Volt Mariner Porsche 100

Porsche 914 EV Conversion

AUGUST 24, 2007

After plugging a fast-blow fuse in, powering up the car blows the fuse. The car is still stranded at Krista's place. Well, I ran out to Radio Shack this morning and got some more 5 amp fuses for the DC/DC converter. I tried a slow-blow fuse and that went too. It looks like there's a pretty serious short in the DC/DC converter.

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DC Convert Volt Plug-in 100

Porsche 914 EV Conversion

OCTOBER 19, 2007

Just for grins, I fitted one of the hair dryers to the passenger side heating duct and plugged into the wall outlet to see how well it would heat the car. I wouldn't use this to fully heat the car, but it'll probably make a decent defroster. It's rather loud, but produces a light stream of warm air.

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Plug-in Installation Light Plug 100

Porsche 914 EV Conversion

JULY 14, 2007

You can see a bit more about Otmar on YouTube at: [link] Here is John Wayland, creator of the fastest EV street-legal car in the world, the White Zombie. I hope to have my car ready for that event, not necessarily to race it, but just to share the technology. And, of course, the White Zombie.

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Lead Acid Honda Insight DC Portland 100

Porsche 914 EV Conversion

FEBRUARY 20, 2007

If you hadn't read before, the 18 8-volt golf cart batteries add 800 pounds to the weight of the car, so the suspension needs upgrading. If I go to the shop and have these replaced, I won't really be able to drive the car around. The 914 is still lurching violently until the car warms up.

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Golf Cart Kits Volt Batteries 100

Porsche 914 EV Conversion

FEBRUARY 16, 2007

I took the 914 in to Alan at A & P Specialties this morning and his techs fixed the timing so the car runs smoothly again. The real acid test is if the car fires up tomorrow while getting cold all night. The points were burned and had to be re-timed.

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Re-Charge Conversion Light All-Electric 100

Porsche 914 EV Conversion

JULY 31, 2007

Here it is, removed from the car. I replaced this relay with the charger interlock relay from the front relay mounting board to get the car working. The car seems to start much more reliably now. Again, if you use HyperTerm, the settings are 19200baud,N,8,1, no handshake. Remember the flakey relay I found yesterday.

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Kits Connect Connected Store 100

Porsche 914 EV Conversion

AUGUST 24, 2007

Since the stranded EV was only 2 1/2 miles away, I walked back to the ICE car and drove it home too. volt drop from the wire resistance going to the back of the car and front again. To fix this, I found the two thickest red wires under the fuse block going to the back of the car.

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Volt DC Light Electric 100

Porsche 914 EV Conversion

SEPTEMBER 15, 2007

This is the engine compartment cover removed from the car. I still have the downspouts from the original car, but the original gutter that captured rain from this mesh opening was too large and interfered with the rear battery box. This is an idea I came up with to help protect the components.

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Purchase IDEA Engine Water 100

Porsche 914 EV Conversion

MARCH 13, 2007

Well, I worked for the last three hours to drop the engine out of the car. After several expletives and tense moments under the car, the engine finally plopped down onto the furniture dolly. Notice the belt that drives the air pump for the emission control system.

Engine 100

Engine Exhaust Parts Fuel 100

Porsche 914 EV Conversion

MARCH 11, 2007

I spent yesterday (Saturday) disconnecting all the cables from under the car in preparation to drop the engine. My buddy Pete is providing some 2x4s later today to hold up the car so I can drop the engine this week. The shift linkage was especially hard because it moved around so much.

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Oil Engine Parts Design 100

Porsche 914 EV Conversion

FEBRUARY 9, 2008

The conversion car came from camp914.com This made the car much easier to drive (similar to an ICE vehicle). The AC motor also provides regenerative braking for free, which also aids in stopping the car with the heavier battery weight. The critical parts needed to complete the car took eight months for delivery.

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Convert Kits Conversion DC 100

Porsche 914 EV Conversion

AUGUST 17, 2007

When I removed this from the car, there was only one 2x4 under the front motor mount. I realized that there is enough clearance to use two 2x4s and it puts the whole assembly closer to the underside of the car when I jack the motor/tranny into place. The car still vibrates!! Here's the assembly on the furniture dolly.

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Motor Motors Motoring Neighborhood 100