Day 7

Sunday. A bit of a late start all round. Gave me a chance to write a few emails and read up on a few things. Bruce and his son have introduced me to rFactor which is a virtual racing game, so I spent a bit of time exploring opportunities here. With the digital models Michael has done and help from Bruce and Co I expect we will be able to get a virtual electric Saker into the game without too much hassle (I'm sure Bruce will want to do a few petrol powered ones as well).

Anyway, after everyone arrived, Bruce started his day by feeding the animals (as usual, except this time the film crew captured the moment). While this was happening, I tidied up the lower seat mounts (wire brush and file) before giving them a coat of paint. The upper mounts are aluminum, so these don't need any paint. Bruce then set about mounting the seats in a position to cater for the larger drivers (small and medium drivers will need an appropriately sized insert). The upholsterer will be taking the seats on Monday so this job has been finished just in time.

The POT box had its first test installation, after fabricating the aluminum mounting bracket. I tested out the travel of the arm and link. It all worked fine when connected to the POT arms bottom hole, but not so good when connected to the others. I will need to cut a small amount off the corner of the retaining cover to remedy this. The picture below shows all the parts (from the left the aluminum parts are: spacer, retaining cover, POT arm and mounting bracket).
Bruce and I also spent a fair bit of time discussing inverter and contactor placement within the car. Fair to say we discussed and measured a number of different options. It's surprising how many new options you can come up with when you have physical items and the car in front of you. After believing we had determined the perfect location on at least two occasions we finished the evening having settled on what we believe is the best location, combining safety, low center of gravity and short cable lengths (no guarantee we wont change our minds overnight though). The inverter will be mounted in the rear, flush with the rear firewall standing vertically on its end and the contactor is to be mounted above the motor (the contactor is not overly heavy, but it is quite voluminous).

Tomorrow we need to do a final check off of the things we need to do, organise or purchase. We already know we need to go into town to get a few things so we also want to double check our shopping list is complete. So far we have:

• Check up on the delivery date of the steering wheel and boss kit
• Get the seats to the upholsterer
• Get the external emergency knob and cable (it will activate the internal cuttoff switch)
• Complete the machining on the half shafts
• Design and fabricate the mount points for the inverter and the contactor box
• Mount the batteries for the temporary battery pack
• Mount the 12V axillary battery
• Size the temporary battery pack cover/enclosure and arrange to have it made.
• Check on the trailer progress
• Complete the 12V auxiliary wiring
  
• Complete the high voltage wiring (Inverter, contactor and battery pack)
  
• Tidy up the interior and dash
• Get the front window installed
• Install the fire extinguisher
• Install harnesses (just clip them in hopefully)
• Wheel alignment/spring height
• Finalise transport arrangements to get myself and the car back to Auckland

Should be easy!?

Day 4

Another day at the office. Today didn't feel very productive, but we organised a few things and made some decisions along the way.

Firstly, we have arranged to install bucket seats and have them upholstered as well. We removed the original European spec seating (which really is just a shaped floor pan). It is not very supportive and doesn't look very nice either. The NZ designed bucket seats are going to much nicer, they provide more support and make a bit more room in the cockpit.

Changing the mount points for the motor has been slow going, but we are making progress. We have been trying not to compromise the space between the end of the motor and the rear firewall (because this space is going to house a section of the battery pack). We needed a small redesign of the brackets which prevent motor rotation around the axles. The original design was encroaching a little too much on our battery space. This is sorted now and we will hopefully finish the welding tomorrow.

Finally, we have decided to retain the original front mounted radiator design. We do have the option of using a small radiator in the side pod air intakes which would save a bit of weight, but we are not going to do this at the moment. In theory the small radiator should be more than enough, but we don't really know if extra cooling is going to be significantly beneficial for our ability to run at full power for long periods of time. Hence we are making use of existing plumbing for a front mounted radiator. We will be starting with a medium sized radiator, knowing that we can go bigger or smaller without any hassle. This is a nice position to be in as we start to test out the capabilities of the car. We will be recording water and motor temperatures with the on board computer so we will be able to monitor the behaviour of various setups and make decisions from there.

Stay tuned.