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This section I have decided to turn into a brief 'blog' noting significant improvements and effect on performance as I go now that Zappy is operational as of 3/1/2009! Note that the most recent comment will go on top...
3/1/10 - Happy (re)Birthday Zappy
Zappy's odo now reads 135529 after a year as full-electric... a little over 4500 miles of trouble-free grinning in the first year! A few significant lessons: motor mounts have to be pretty stout to handle the torque, the controller stays a lot cooler with a good heat sink and some air moving over it, FLA batteries really benefit from installation of a single-point watering system, and battery boxes really should be insulated and probably have warming pads for places where the car sits below 50 degrees F unless you can deal with your range getting cut to half what it is in warm weather.
12/30/09 - added ABS hood scoop to be 'super cool'
A quick 'cosmetic' upgrade... My buddy Mark just couldn't stand the rough hole in the hoop and found me an inexpensive tweaker scoop to add. Gotta admit, it DOES look better, and probably will push more air down past my heatsink too. Took about 1 minute to install. I might run around the outside edge with some clear caulk to help seal and make sure the 'sticking effect' is maximized per instructions on the box.
- 146.0 hours of labor total -
11/4/09 - added ceramic heater for defroster and cabin heat
It finally got cold enough to inspire me to install the heater core... pretty easy 2 hour job. I was able to slip it in the middle of the fan duct rather than pulling apart the dash to get to the original heater core. The 1500 watt heater brings the air temp up to about what the ICE radiator core did; 'warm', but not 'hot'. The nice thing is that it gets warm almost instantly!
- 146.0 hours of labor total -
11/1/09 - finished install of Flow-Rite watering system
Monthly watering of the Floodies was really getting me down. Cost justification based on time savings seemed like a good risk, so I did it. What a great thing... takes all the pain out of watering! Literally takes a minute to do what used to take me over an hour, well worth the cost.
- 144.0 hours of labor total -
7/11/09 - Added 'scoop' to hood today...
The controller was getting pretty hot in the sumer heat after a long uphill pull, so I decided to add a scoop after all...I started with just working with the metal on the hood... but may buy a plastic after-mark scoop after all to improve airflow.
- 142.0 hours of labor total -
3/18/2009 - Still averaging about 0.4 kWhr/mile (at the plug), added hood today...
I was a little disappointed that my new aluminum wheels (Primax-333) and new Kumho Solus Kr21 tires did NOT seem to make a significant difference in efficiency. I only had gone about 40 miles since last measure, so the difference would not have been obvious unless it was 'significant'. I got the hood on with a little 'cut and bump' from the inside rather than cutting a hole and needing a scoop after all. I did have to add a central latch support; it would have been easier to do it back BEFORE I installed the bumper as I had to take it back off for access. I plan to check temp after a long climb uphill... if the controller feels hot, I may go back to adding the open scoop after all.
- 141.0 hours of labor -
3/8/2009 - 153 miles - Decided to take a reading of cumulative performance after the first week... averaging 0.41 kWhr/mile at the plug.
After driving a little every day to break in batteries and brushes (without any instrumentation installed) I decided to take a reading on my kill-a-watt meter and see what kind of performance I am getting. I kept the extension cord plugged in the whole time so the meter wouldn't lose it's total. Remember that there is no hood, no bumper and no bellypan yet. Additionally the car still has old (bald) p175/60r13 tires on the stock steel rims. Turns out that over the first 153 miles my average was .41 kWhr/mile. At a 'steady state' 100 amps the car speed seems to level out right about 40mph on the flattest road I can find. Not great, but not bad all things considered. This is average driving in rolling terrain suburban stop/go with high speeds of 50-55 mph and average closer to maybe 35-40mph. Today I also installed my metering on a
pillar mount pod
which looks oh so racey! Now I'll have a much better idea how hard I am actually pushing and what's left.
- 138.0 hours of labor -
3/1/2009 - 0 miles - First test run on the road! whoo hoo..... Zappy's new life begins after 130992 miles on ICE.
I finished wiring last evening, plugged in the charger... and everything seemed ok! No smoke, amps were flowing, etc... I was really hard to wait till morning, but the batteries have been sitting uncharged for so long I really didn't want to kill them with a test drive. This morning I turned the switch and again was amazed; no smoke came from anywhere! A short drive around the neighborhood was SO exciting. Gave a few test rides to friends and family and grinned all day.... ;)
- 131.0 hours of labor -
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