12V Testing and the Motor

May 2009 ... Plugging a 12V power supply back into the 300ZX I started testing the 12 Volt equipment in the car to see what needed attention.

Headlights ... Worked

Indicators ... Worked

Windscreen Wipers ... Worked

Cabin Fan ... Needed to ensure all sensors were reconnected ... but finally worked

The horn still needs attention

Removing the ECU and the ECU/Engine wiring harness hasn't affected any of the 12V equipment ... That was a huge relief !!!

The Motor:

I have also decided on a motor ... ... Originally I was looking at a Netgain Warp11 Series DC motor specifically "designed" for electric vehicle use.

From the research i've done ... this was the motor to get for a performance DC conversion ...

A standard Series DC motor of this size is normally rated at about 48Volt. Whereas a performance EV conversion requires a motor to be run at 120 Volt+. A DC motor is generally capable of running at a much higher voltage than it is rated, but with such an increase in voltage causes arcing on the motor's brushes (which is a bad thing) ... These Netgain Warp motors are shipped with the brushes pre-advanced to prevent this arcing. There are many happy EVers out there using these motors, so it seemed like the way to go. But for AUD$5500 this wasn't a decision to be taken lightly.

After much thought I decided to take another track ... I sourced a similar series DC motor, from a second hand forklift recycler in the US. (I did try and find one in Australia but forklift recyclers I spoke with hadn't heard of a 10" or 11" DC Forklift motor.

This is the 11.5" 120kg Clark Series DC forklift motor. As far as the "experts" have commented ... It has potentially the same power capacity of the $5500 Netgain Warp 11 motor, at a fraction of the price. Bought for AUD$500 plus $830 delivery and best of all "no duty" was needing to be paid. I'm taking a bit of a gamble with an unproven motor, but this will save my budget $$$

Once received, the motor appeared to be in pretty good condition, with good sized brushes and a good ammount of comm bars. ... ... I haven't had a chance to power it up though (remember to only use 12V on a motor without any load) and since i'm looking at a 156Volt conversion, i'll have to look into advancing the brushes also. Better info on brush advancement can be found here http://www.hitorqueelectric.com/

The only other downside with this motor I could see was it only had one shaft, unlike the Warp11 having double shafts. One shaft needs to be connected to the gearbox and quite often you can use the second shaft at the front of the motor to power accessories like Air Conditioning or a RPM sensor. Well, this made my mind up about another variable ... I was wanting to lose the Air Con equipment to make better room for the batteries and now with no extra shaft to connect the compressor to, it was a no brainer ... ... all Air Con lines, Condensor and Radiator have also now been removed.