Speed show push - Day six (the motor goes in)

Slept in to 7:45 this morning. Was a treat for me since I've been staying up far to late recently.

The major achievement today was getting the motor and transaxle mount points finished and dropping everything into place to check it all out. Everything fits as planned.


Also, the accelerator pedal has been fitted to the car and a suitable area identified for the POT box. The dash also got a lick of black satin paint (it was decided that the bare aluminum metal would not be good for glare).

The film crew turned up early afternoon and got some good footage for the documentary. We made sure there was always a convenient and comfortable position for them to film from :)

It is Father's day tomorrow here in NZ and I am away from the family with this project so I will miss the morning rarching that the kids would normally give me. I'm sure they will save it up with twice the energy for when I get back at the end of next week. Also my son's "Let's get inventing" episode is on TV at 5pm. An extra long call home will be required!

Time for bed. More progress tomorrow...

Day 5

Friday. Today we completed the welding for the motor mounts and the seats (Bruce and I prepared the parts and Paul did the welding).

Also, we began fitting out the accelerator POT with appropriate attachments to connect it to the accelerator pedal (required the creation of an arm and a bracket to fit in the Saker's pedal box). We plan on using a rod and a couple of ball joints to connect the accelerator pedal to the POT arm. As well as the internal POT spring we will add a spring to the POT's arm to prevent it staying open if something goes wrong.

Earlier this morning I had a quick look at the on board computer to prepare for the wiring. I have come to the conclusion that this will be very easy to get going. I'm looking forward to when the internal wiring can begin as this starts to make it feel real. We still need to create the fittings to hold the inverter, contactor box and the batteries. When this messy work is complete, then we will start the wiring. Hopefully the wiring will start on Monday at the latest.

Before I go, if you haven't noticed yet, the greenstage website has been updated and it is no longer just a stub. It shows our imediate high level goals and ways in which you can become involved. Check it out: http://www.greenstage.co.nz

Enjoy.

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.

Day 3

Today was a little strange. No particular reason, it just feels a little surreal. Working on a car this amazing has something to do with it. Combine that with the high power electric drive train and I think you will understand the feeling.
I have placed an order with Brent Smith Trailers to build a Saker specific transporter trailer by the 12th September. Brent has confirmed this will be achieved and he was happy to accomodate the modifications required to make the trailer just right for the job (this saves alot of hassel with renting or organising transporters plus it solves the problem of eventually having to buy a trailer anyway).

Today Bruce sourced the STi axels and prepared the chassis changes for Paul to weld later in the day. The chassis and mount point changes are now complete from a design point of view and largely complete from a fabrication point of view. We need to remove the motor and transaxle tomorrow so Paul can finish the job.

The eVision is now installed in the dash and we also have some tail lights (will get a third LED light to fill out the space later). We don't need blinkers or reversing lights for a race car (although as you can see we have installed blinkers). We only need brake and rain lights to pass scrutineering. This gives us a few interesting styling options which I might experiment with if we have time.

Until fabrication is complete and the mount points for the controller, contactor box and batteries are complete the focus needs to remain on auxiliary systems and other similar jobs that don't require access to the cockpit.

Tomorrow mount point fabrication will continue as well as auxilary system wiring, dash switches and buttons etc. We might also start looking at the POT box for the accelerator.

More action to come...

Speed show push - Day two

This morning we mated the transaxle, clutch, adapter and motor together in preparation for the installation. This allowed us to do a final sizing up of the chassis and mount point changes that will be required.

After sizing everything up, Bruce set about removing the petrol engines mount points. There was some discussion about needing to lower the rear bottom chassis rail , but after checking out the transaxle's axle shaft alignment with the suspension geometry in its normal position it was clear that we did not need to lower it any further.

Everything fits where it is meant to and there is heaps of room either side of the motor and in front of it for batteries (The Saker is a rear engined vehicle, so don't let this next photo confuse you).



It also appears that a decision about half shafts has been reached. We will source a set of Subaru STi axles (stronger than standard subaru axles) and modify them to fit the UN1 transaxle.

As well as this, the dash structural changes have been finished. The Dash2 is mounted but the eVision still needs some work (mounting requires the creation of a two layer lexan bracket with spacers. The front layer is the cover/lense and the back is the mount plate).

Tomorrow I need to make a decision about the trailer (buy one here, or use a transporter and source one back in Auckland). It will come down to cost effectiveness of the deal and how well the trailer is going to cater for the Saker (the trailer needs some specific features to handle the long front overhang and weight distribution of the rear engined vehicle). We will be visiting a very good local trailer manufacturer who has one completed and slightly run in trailer plus a semi completed trailer that might be a better starting point given the modifications we will be after.

Check back tomorrow!

Push for the speed show

We have the Electric Saker booked to be at the NZ Speed Show on the 20th and 21st of this month. Today was the first of day of an intensive two week plan we have for getting the car mechanically and electrically complete (this work is being done in the Saker factory located in Bunnythorpe). We don't expect to have everything finished, but the goal is to have all the major mechanical work complete and the majority of the electrical components permanently installed although with a temporary 144V test pack.

Currently our Bunnythorpe TODO list looks like this:

• Trailer (needed to transport the race car back to Auckland and for future transportation needs)
  
• Receive Motor + Transaxle
  
• Motor + Transaxle Installation
• *HALF SHAFTS*
• Dash
• Inverter + contactor
• Battery rack/mounts
• Rear tail lights (Brake + rain light)
• Cutoff switch
• seat + harness
• Fire extinguisher
  
• Graphics (Monday + Michael)
• POT + Brake plumbing (+regen)
• Wheel alignment/spring height

Today, while we were waiting for the motor and transaxle to arrive Bruce and I set about laying out the dash and making decisions about whether to use the European style aluminum race dash of the more elegant custom dash configuration commonly used here in NZ. To keep true to the goals of the race car and to minimise unneeded work we chose to modify the exisitng aluminium dash to house the EVision and the Race Technology electronic dash. This provides a minimalistic look and keeps the weight down so we are happy with the decision.

At about 3pm the delivery truck arrived. It dropped off the transaxle, motor adapter plate and clutch. This had all come from We Can Engineering, who had machined the adapter plate for us. The adapter plate looks very beafy and will certainly not be breaking anytime soon. It's possible it could have been made a bit lighter, but in the long term plan this plate, the clutch and the transaxle are temporary items so it's not going to be a problem. Right now we want things to be simple and reliable so we can focus on getting the car to the track sooner rather than later.

We weighed the components to find that all up we have a motor and gearbox combination that weighs 171kg (Transale 55kg, adapter 20kg, clutch 5kg and motor 91 kg) . Not light, but acceptable (it does give us more reason to get rid of the clutch and simplify the gear box in the future though).

After putting the Tilton clutch together and giving the adapter a coat of paint we called it a night.

For tomorrow, the dash is almost ready to be installed (just needs a few mounting holes drilled) and the gearbox and motor are ready to be mated and lowered into the chasis so we can plan the modifications required to mount the first electric drivetrain in a Saker GT.

Stay tuned.

Road to completion

Last week our motor, controller, eVision and chargers arrived. Kept us busy unpacking things and checking we had what we expected. The event also provided a bit of an unpacking frenzy for the documentary being created.

Some of these parts had been ordered back in January, so we have been waiting a while. Now that we have the key components, it puts the time line and road to completion squarely back in our hands. We are behind where we wanted to be, but I am not going to rush anything.

We have also been tidying up the lead acid test pack. I am pleased to say, it is ready and waiting for the challenge of testing the Electric Saker's mechanical and electrical systems when they are completed in the next 3-4 weeks.