Upgrading for hilly golf course

[bobcat27]

Hello All,
This is my first post. I recently purchased a 1998 EZ-GO TXT series type electric golf cart. It was in fairly good shape when I received it. I have done a few things to hopefully improve its safety: new tires all the way around, cleaned and tested the batteries and replaced cables, cleaned and checked the brakes. I have driven it in my neighborhood which is fairly hilly and found it very slow going up some of the hills. I plan on using it on my golf course which has more aggressive hills.Does anyone have any suggestion on what I can do to improve its hill climbing ability? It is a 36 volt system. One other thing I noticed the drivers side front tire was worn more on the inside of the tread than the passenger side and I noticed what appeared to be a channel lock mark on the tie rod. Any suggestions or thoughts would be greatly appreciated. This is my first cart.

[JohnnieB]

Welcome to BGW!


The uneven tire wear is either incorrect Camber (see attached drawing) or incorrect Toe-In.
Toe-in adjustment is covered in the attached manual.

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All carts with series wound motors slow on up inclines, but how much they slow can be reduced by allowing the motor to draw more amps.

Higher amp controller, heavier high current cables, heavy-duty solenoid and heavy-duty F/R switch are the typical upgrades, plus a higher Amp-hour battery pack to feed them

You mentioned new tires. If they are taller than the stock 18" height, you've lost some of the torque originally available and the slowing on hills is more pronounced.

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To get the motor to spin faster (more speed), you will have to increase the battery pack voltage.

[bobcat27]

Hello JohnnieB,

Thank you for the response and the attached technicians manual. I replaced the tires with the standard size 18x8.5 size. Do you have a recommendation for a replacement controller and cables? I have checked some of the other post and 2 AWG cable seem to standard recommendation. I'm not sure which controller and F/R switch to replace what I have now. I'm mainly interested in using my cart for golf. I live about a mile from my course and would be driving on residential streets to get there. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

[COURTESYCART]

upgrade ALL your battery cables to atleast 4ga (this includes battery to battery and cables to motor. EZGO has a 4ga kit as well as a few site sponsors. 2ga will work, but my be overkill on your use of the cart.

factory these carts come with 6ga. IMO this is too small for even a golf course cart. upgrade the cables and see how it does.

[bobcat27]

Thanks for the recommendation, cables will be the most economical way to start. Do you know if the cable kit has replacement cables for the F/R switch?
Hopefully that will be sufficient to get to and from the course without any issues. As I mentioned I just want to use it for golf.

[JohnnieB]

I agree that 2Ga might be overkill for your application, but I disagree about using the 4Ga cables made by EZGO, or similarly constructed cables from any source.
The reason being the ends are not sealed and strands of copper within the cable are exposed the the corrosive air inside the battery compartment, which in turn leads to the type failure seen in picture-1

I prefer high current cables with completely enclosed terminals that are sealed air tight between the terminal and the cable insulation, like those shown in picture-2
These are the cables I use: http://www.cartsunlimited.net/Batter..._Upgrades.html

Be sure to replace all of the high current cables since total current passes through all of them. If your controller has 4 terminals, you need 14 cables, if it is a 3 terminal controller, 13 are needed.

If the F/R switch is the original, or is getting hot, it should be upgraded also.

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You said the golf course had steep hills, so a controller and solenoid upgrade will be needed to minimize the slowing on the hills.
Since you are running stock height tires, 400A will most likely be sufficient.

A stock controller is 275A, so a 400A controller will give you about 45% more torque.

Check out the introduction on the Speed Controller Upgrade page at Carts Unlimited. It contains very good info on the things to take into consideration when selecting a controller.