Starter Block Off Plate

Here's a shot of the mount for the old starter. I used a piece of sheet metal to cover up the hole. One of the bolts is the original motor mount and the other is from the starter mount. Tin snips and five minutes later.......and viola. The sheet metal was flexed out a little so I used a bit of adhesive caulk to glue it to the transmission housing.

I used a clamp and ratchet to hold the sheet metal against the transmission housing.

Here's the finished product.

Plastic Board for Electronics Mounting

I purchased a piece of 1/2" black plastic Starboard to mount the controller, charger, potbox, etc on the front of the firewall rack. It measures 27" x 8.5" and should provide a nice surface.

I used six countersunk screws onto the front of the battery rack. I should be getting the engine wiring harness tomorrow and the motor controller this week. I can then place the major components and map out the wiring. At least that's the plan.......

Batteries in the Car with Hold downs

Racks installed, time to put the batteries in. Here are the rear batteries. I used galvanized 3/4" angle iron with threaded rod for the hold downs. Still have room for the spare tire and storage.

Here is the sixth battery in the trunk. I used a 1" wide steel bar underneath the car to anchor the threaded rods. This battery just sits on the trunk bottom.

Just to be safe I cut out notches in the angle iron to avoid touching the terminal posts.

Here is the front rack with batteries. That's my son's hand in the picture.


Uh oh, when I put the batteries and hold downs in the firewall rack the passenger side forward threaded rod hits the hood.

Here is where the rod hits the hood.

Since there is a open space further out on the hood, to the left in the above picture I cut a small piece of 1" flat steel and moved the threaded rod further to the left. That worked quite well and cleared the hood. Everything seems to fit quite well.

Symbolic.....at least to me.

Good riddance!!!!!!!!!!!!

Spinning up the Motor

I decided to spin up motor before I installed it. I ordered lugs and 2/0 welding cable so I made the power cable to connect the armatures across the Warp9 motor.

Here's a video of the motor spinning. I used a battery charger to drive the motor.

Powder Coating the Battery Racks

Once all the racks were measured, cut, drilled, assembled I disassembled to have powder coated. This will protect them from corrosion, battery acid and gives it a better look. Here are the three racks displayed before coating. They are from front to back: fire wall rack, rear rack and front rack.

I've wrapped them up into three neat bundles.
Here they are after coating.
Here is the firewall rack back in the car after coating. Isn't it shiny? I didn't take pictures of the other two before I put batteries in. The frequency of pictures seems to be decreasing the further along I get in the project.

Firewall Battery Rack

This was the most difficult rack to fabricate. It has many pieces to cut and a lot of holes to drill. I'll try to give brief assembly description. Detailed instructions are from Tim's blog here: http://civic-ev.blogspot.com/2008/10/redesigning-firewall-rack.html

1. First I cut 4 vertical supports that hang off the shock towers. Each support is 9 1/2" long and bolts to an existing hole.
2. I cut two 1 inch diameter galvanized pipe approximately 2 3/4". These are used under the to end angle iron pieces towards the rear. These also bolt into holes in the frame.
3. Cutting all the angle iron was 'fun' to say the least. Lots of sparks, metal bits put a nice coating on my mitre saw. I cut the two outer pieces first, held them with c-clamps and then measured the cross-pieces to fit.
4. The two pieces in the middle will help support the plastic board for mounting electronics.
5. Once everything was cut and aligned, making sure to provide a gap above the transmission, I marked all the holes and drilled and rebolted the entire assembly again.