The general plan is to use about 400 pounds of lithium iron phosphate cells, spread between the spaces under the right and left rear passenger seats where the gas tank used to be and the engine compartment (mostly approximately where the radiator was). I'm using a Netgain Hyper9 AC motor (144 volt version). I haven't decided what I'll do for charging and battery management. I plan to order an adapter from CanEV to interface to the transmission so I'll be able to keep the stickshift.
Mine was much simpler. I bought a sewing machine because I thought now would be a good time to learn how to sew and maybe I could make masks for myself and family. I never really understood how these machines work and I have to say, they are pretty amazing (even a low tech one like I got - a Singer 4423).
I also gained a ton of respect for people who are good at sewing. It's much more difficult than I thought it would be.
From what I've seen it's fine, you can choose which gear to shift to and leave it there. Cold start from 5th gear. Can even be fun to play with the gear ratios, apparently. But it is another point of failure.
One of the things holding me off from attempting an EV conversion on my old Saab 900 sitting in my shop is that the gear box in it is notoriously brittle and would break even with the torque from the (turbo) gas engine that it shipped with.
I also like having a stickshift.
It's also fun to modify machines to be used in ways they were never intended by the original designers. Fortunately a lot of the DIY electric car components are pretty flexible in terms of how you use them. For instance, you can get your motor controller, your battery management system, and your charger from different companies and reasonably expect them to work together because they each have a well-defined job and that's all they do.
I re-read Artemis now that I know something about welding, and was kind of disappointed it was all oxygen-acetylene, which I know next to nothing about rather than TIG, which is usually the recommended way to weld aluminum. (I'm not sure if you'd even need a shield gas like argon in a vacuum environment?) Maybe there is a good technical reason for that, but it wasn't explained in the book (nor does it really matter to the story except to the 3% of readers who care about welding trivia).
Is a thing that I would like to do, on the future, with my 90's Nissan Micra.
I did save one of the rotors from the engine. Maybe I can think of some whimsical use for it, like cut a thin slice off it and weld it to something as a sort of decoration.
I could get better range with more batteries, but I also didn't want to increase the total weight of the vehicle by more than a few hundred pounds, just to stay within design tolerances.
(The RX-8 is about 3,000 pounds normally, which is pretty light for that sort of car. A Miata would probably be an even better choice, as it's around 2,000 pounds. It's hard to find newer Miatas for a reasonable price, though. RX-8's can be had pretty cheap because the rotary engine is easy to destroy if you don't maintain it properly and even in the best case usually needs to be rebuilt every 100,000 miles or so to replace worn apex seals. So, there are a lot of used RX-8's on the market that need engine work.)
I've been using an AHP AlphaTIG 201xd, which seems to be a good machine for the price. It seems that the hard part initially is mostly just figuring out what settings to use to get a good weld. Beyond that, it's about getting used to how aluminum behaves, and figuring out how to position yourself and your work piece so you can keep your hands steady.
My welds aren't anything I would mistake for art, but they get the job done.
