Today I took the car to Gene Butman Ford in Ypsilanti and my cuz took it for a spin. He is a mechanic there, it got his seal of approval!!!!!! All the other mechanics gathered around and asked questions and thier nods too. On my way back home the batteries took a turn to low voltage, I had to pull over to the side several times to get back home. but I made it!!!!!!! I was about 4 miles out. I put it on the charger as soon as I got home. The KTA charger is still in the shop waiting for a GFCI. The mileage I got was 11 miles today. Plus the 25 yesterday, so driving the way I wanted to I went 32 miles on the freeway and around town and 4 miles limping back home. You have to understand it will take 50 cycles to break in the batteries, and the correct charger will make a difference too. Even though the mileage is dissapointing the car is very quiet and it is cool and fun to drive.

Here is the Vaccum resivoirare I'll mount it in the area the exhaust used to be. Here are a couple of pics of the trunk vent one closed one open, and the gauges on the dash.

Attached Thumbnails

       

 

Dawn

I could not tell from the photo, but you want to make sure that the vacuum hose you use is heavy enough it does not collapse on itself when under vacuum. In the lab we use the rule if it cannot take 120 degree bend it is not heavy enough.

Lazlow

I used Neopream hose it is 1/2 inch for maximum vaccum delivery and very heavy duty. It will kink if you make a tight bend but there are no bends tight enough to make it kink. It is the same stuff I covered the wires with just smaller. I was just on my way to murrays to get some wire ties to sling the tube with. the tube is made with 3 inch pvc and is about 5 feet long with caps in both ends and a fitting drilled into one end and glued in. It should make a exelent resivoir for the vaccum.

I found out how the Saturn works after a little digging on the wiring diagrams. The tach gets it's signal from the ignition circut, so me and my mechanic came up with a simple idea that I am going to try. The abs pickups go off a signal too. I have a place on the back of the transmission that the clutch hooked to. I'll make a bracket for the abs module to bolt to and see if I need one signal or four per revolution of the motor turning. it may take some time to make it work, as I have to pull the board to get to this area.

I had a electriction friend of mine check the transformer wiring out and he said it was ok, so it was just a bad charger or maybe when I started it the fan on the side it mat have sucked some debris into the inside of the charger and it shorted out. It does make me feel better that it wasn't something I did like wire it wrong.

I got the Charger back yesterday and hooked it up. the gfci was tripping and I couldn't get it to stop. I tried to clean the tops of the batteries and it still was grounding out to the frame. So I called Bob this morning and found the problem to be the insulatation I used around the batteries to be the cause. I'll have to remove the battery pack and install a pvc liner between the batteries and the frame I welded in to keep the electricity from grounding to the frame. I hope this works. The insulatation has a aluminum backing to reflect the heat back to the batteries, it is very durable as when I walked out of home depot the wind caught it and bent it 180 degrees and it didn't break in half. I was impressed as it is only 1/2 inch, but now I have to insulate the batteries from it and the frame.
I trailered the car up north this last week and now have 60 miles on it, everyone was impressed with it, the only thing is the limitation of the miles it can go, which I still am not sure of as I haven't got a good charge in the pack yet. Maybe I'll get it together today again.

I worked on the back trunk area today and got it done. I put another 1/2 inch of insulatation under the batteries and then the plastid. I went to the local recycle center and there wes a old pool there. No liner but the side was made of thick plastic, just what I needed. It cost me a whopping 5 dollars . What a deal I am glad I stopped. It is easy to work with just score it and it will break there!!!! I tried the charger again and it still doesn't work still tripping the gfci. Tomorrow I'll get on the front four.

I found the problem with the gfci. I had the front batteries tied down with a nylon strap and when I disconnected it the charger started to work. The directions said I could run it at 13 amps but the best I can get is 12 amps, when I run it at 13 amps the circut beraker kicks off. I am waiting for the CONSTANT VOLTAGE MODE to kick in. It is supposed to kick in at 169.2 volts, but this is the first time charging the batteries and will probably need to be adjusted. At the moment the pack is at 156 volts. Tomorrow I will be able to see what a fully charged electric car will do!!!!!!
I still plan to remove the front batteries and insulate them with the plastic.

MAKE VIDEO!!!