Logisystem's Contoller is here!!!

Unfortunately I got caught in the Logisystem's recall on some of their faulty controllers so my order took almost five months while they fixed the problems. Not too big of a deal, I'd rather get a good controller slow then a bad controller quickly.

I got the 120-144 volt 500 amp controller. Thanks to a friend who also converted his car and got this controller I realized the cooling fans were missing. Quick call to Logisystems and viola....they arrived a few days later.

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.

Engine Wiring Harness

This was the part I was dreading the most. I am more mechanical than electrical and wasn't sure where to start with the wiring. Uh oh.....I noticed that I didn't have the engine wiring harness! Since the car had the engine pulled when I got it the harness went with it. Didn't notice until I started thinking about this step. But called my friend Alex and he called his families salvage yard. Here's the harness. I retained the backup-lights, speedometer, idiot lights (oil, battery), temperature gauge and the two main wiring harness bundles and the main alternator wires to reconnect. I spent several days unwrapping the old, oily cable wrap and bought the standard black plastic flex hose to re-wrap. I also labled each wire that I needed to use.

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.

Power Steering Reservoir

I didn't want to swap out the steering rack for a manual. So I re plumbed the fluid reservoir as seen in the picture below. I bought a 1 inch piece of hose to fit inside the large reservoir hose and over the metal hose. Basically I shortened all the plumbing lines to allow the reservoir to sit back here.

Motor mount and Installation

Now that the motor and transmission are bolted together I need to fabricate the motor mount. I used Tim's design for the motor mount. See picture.


I purchased a 1/4" steel plate, 12" x 12" from a local machine shop in Jupiter, Florida, SASCO. I then had a coworker cut out the profile and the center hole. Next it was up to me to drill the four mounting holes for the Warp9 and the three holes across the top. Unfortunately the method I used to measure the angle was a broken plastic protractor that I taped together. First hole lined up, the rest......well..........not so much. Plus the 27 degree angle was different for my motor. Maybe because Tim advanced his timing by himself where I had it done at the factory. Either way that angle changed to approximately 42 degrees. After much drilling and cursing here is the finished product. I'm going to tell everyone those fender washers are required and not an attempt to cover up mis-drilled holes and the extra holes are for ventilation.

Next I tried to lower the engine/transmission into the car from the top. But I couldn't maneuver the assembly down into the space. The transmission mount made it too awkward.




So I jacked up the front of the car and slid the engine underneath.



I reattached the engine hoist and tried to position the engine in place. But the tail shaft hits the frame. I new this was coming but I wanted to do the fit up myself before I deiced what my next step would be. I could either cut the car frame or cut the tail shaft. Even if I kept the tail shaft there is no room to use it run the a/c compressor or other peripheries.


Cutting the shaft (gulp) was my choice. I taped up the shaft to prevent metal shavings from getting into the case and bearing. Hacksaw and 10 minutes of elbow grease later it's cut.


Time to start lifting up the engine into place. The best way was to align the two transmission mounts first and loosely thread on the bolts and nuts. If you look at the right side of the picture I brought the new motor mount up under the original gas engine mount. Next step is to make a bracket to attach them together.

Here is a closer view.

I used a five inch piece of 2" angle iron, 1/4" thick. C-clamps were used to hold the angle iron to the steel plate and aligned to the car motor mount.

Here is a closer view. I taped up the motor vents to prevent any metal bits or dirt from falling in during installation. To level the motor I used 1/2" nuts under the mount to set the spacing. marked the matching holes in the angle iron to drill with a metal scribe.

Here it is bolted up. I used 1/2" bolts in the car motor mount and 3/8" bolts in the steel plate. This mounting system should work very well.

The Batteries are here!

I ordered the batteries, battery monitoring system, battery lugs, heat shrink, and a crimper that Carlo let me rent at http://www.ev-supply.com/. The batteries are Universal UB121100 twelve volt with 110 ah rating. The batteries were shipped to Miami so I rented a truck to pick them up.

Think the truck is big enough?

The truck came with an electric tail gate which was great to move 70 lb batteries.

My best side.


Oh my aching back!!!!!!