Xtreme's Honda Civic electric car conversion

Xtreme Cartz

Hey it's great to be back on here after being away for so long. I apologize for any PM's I haven't replied to yet.


Here's my new project thats been keeping me busy. It's an electric powered Honda Civic using the parts out of a 2001 Club Car Villager 4. I'm totally impressed with how well it runs. I been wanting to do an electric car conversion for a couple years but didn't know how or have enough money. I decided to do this project as a cheap way to learn about EV's before investing all my $$$$ into a car that I might not even be able to put together. Between all the EV researching and through this build I am quickly becoming addicted to them.


The car's been up and running on DC juice for a month now and it is doing great!! I have 70 miles on it so far riding around town. Top speed is about 35 mph and it cruises easy at 28.

I drove 10.5 miles the other day on a single charge and the batteries were at 50.3 volts when I got back. This was over a period of a few couple mile test runs and extremely light on the throttle. Hills don't seem to kill the car too much, maybe a 0.2 drop in voltage. Hard accelerating you will see 45 volts usually and 43 was the lowest. I tried to keep it right at 48-50 or above while cruising which it does easy at 28 mph.

Yesterday I went on a 8 mile continuous run and the car did fantastic again. It stays a pretty constant 49.2 volts at 28 mph on flat ground. The batteries were at 50.8 after 8 miles.
I like having the volt meter hooked up so I can monitor how it's doing and conserve the batteries. Before I was just guessing and praying they were ok. I've been able to squeeze quite a few more miles out of it by watching the volt meter.

Today I drove a couple times to my high school and around the neighborhood. The car seems to keep up with the pace of traffic easily around my town. I still have yet to get the finger so it must be doing pretty good.






The 25 year old engine came out easy.



Laying out the wiring and electronics after stripping from the golf cart.





The motors spline shaft doesn't match the transmission input shaft. So in order to adapt the motor shaft to fit the trans input shaft, I cut apart the clutch plate and welded it's hub to the motor shaft. The clutch isn't needed with an electric motor.

If I ever upgrade to a new EV motor I think I'm going to have a machine shop make an adapter coupler for the shafts. I wouldn't feel comfortable welding on a new $1200 motor. LOL Hopefully the weld will hold. It was easy to get the clutch plate and motor shaft perfectly centered as they are the same diameter.









There ya go the motor now slips right on.

BGW

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Xtreme Cartz

Now I need a way to mount the electric motor to the Honda transmission. I began with a 20 x 20 x 3/8" steel plate to form into an adapter plate.





Tracing the transmission pattern on to the adapter plate.


Driling mounting holes.




I added a 1/4" spacer plate to move the motor back because the shaft was to long.














Motor and transmission are finally mounted up. Its starting to take shape.

Xtreme Cartz

Motor and transmission are in. SWEET


Motor mounts--I was able to use the stock mounts in the rear which is great help in setting the CV axles where they should be.


The front and upper mounts I had to custom build from scratch.






Front custom motor mount.


Now it's looking like an electric car.


On Sunday I was able to get the car running and actually took it on the first test run. I had all the batteries in the pass. floor and seat with jumper cables running out the window connecting the battery pack to the main pos and neg cables. It was the funniest thing to see but a cool feeling taking off in an electric car. I'm impressed with the amount of power the car has. It takes off and moves along great. The 6 ga battery cables heat up fast within 10 minutes around the yard so I haven't had a chance to see how it does out on the road until I upgrade the cables.

Xtreme Cartz

New goodies!!







The car on its first day out.

Xtreme Cartz

Been doing some more work on the car. It's getting there. I didn't think it would be very hard to fit those batteries under the hood of the Honda. HAHA...riiiight.

I made some cardboard batteries for mock up.


It took me a couple tries to get the lower racks just right.






The batteries fit and look COOL! BUT there's a battery on the pass side that is in the way of the front hood hinge.







The only way I could make it work is to put 3 of the 8 volts on the lower rack and put the 12 volt accessory battery down there too.

I remade this section and dropped it down 1 1/2".




The 12 volt clears with no problem.

Xtreme Cartz

Next I cut out a small plate to cover the hole where the startor use it be in the transmission.


The top battery rack holds 3 8 volt batteries.


I notched the strut tower so that the 3 batteries could be squeezed in there.



All the batteries are in and ready to be wired up.



The controller will be mounted somewhere in this area.


Here are the mounts I came up with. I need to drill the holes and rivet it in there.





I had some electric car signs made up. I think they look pretty good on there.

Xtreme Cartz

The other day I was out by the welding store and picked up 32 ft. of 2/0 ga welding cable and 40 connectors. They big hunks of chunk compared to that 6 ga stuff.

scottyb

Now that looks just GREAT !!!
Do you have any plans to something with more voltage?

Innkeeper1

ditto!! I second scottyb with more voltage!! hey why not use 12 volt batteries and a beefier controller and beef up your volts?? you could get the car to go faster and last longer.. kewl project though!! keep everyone posted to your upgrades and how its going..see my thread about 96 volt rearend and you will get lots of input about more volts! i think your little car could run nicely on 96 or even 108 volts..id definately wanna switch to 12 volt batteries..why have all that weight with the 8 volts?? kewl project though!!!

roady89

Xtreme, Keep up the awesome work man.