Marks Story
This is great! I drove her home, drove her to the store, drove her to band practice and didn’t use one drop of gasoline. She is really starting to look like a real car. Check out the photos…
OK here is the latest. I will get Ev1e back from Cars etc. next week (after Wednesday) and I have some work to do before I get the interior done. The first thing is moving the wheels out so that they fit in the wheel wells properly. The next is…Performance. The fastest I have been able to go so far is 58 mph. This car is supposed to be able to go 90 mph I have been in touch with the folks at Azure and they sent me some parameter settings for a DMOC capture. I will be running some driving test and sending them the results. They will then send me the proper settings to make my car Go go go! Then I will get the interior done. Here are some more pics of EV1E’s progress. The changes are subtle but definite.
I got EV1E back from Bob yesterday and what a difference. Jason down at Big J Tires, helped me pick out a low resistance tire and then his team did a first class job on the front end alignment. They checked the rear end alignment and Bob Tumazi took it from there. He made the adjustment and now EV1E scoots down the road like she was meant to. I am having a special transmission re-geared for her shifting points as they are different then an ICE vehicle, that should help a little more. For the record I was keeping up with traffic on 99 when I brought her home yesterday. When I got home I had used 1% of the charge. Wow! This really works… you should get one. Next week The Body Shop.
My friend Bob Tumazi of Tumazi Motors in Turlock CA, told me a story today about a man who, in 1965 made a Volkswagen Beetle go 58 mi on one gallon of gas. The way he did this was by making the car light in weight and using low resistance synthetic grease and oil, inflating the tires to 100psi and a real good wax job. On Tuesday I m taking EV1E to Bobs shop and dropping her off so that Bob can perform his magic. He is the only one in town that will do four wheel alignment on a Volkswagen Type 1 Beetle, and certainly the only one I would trust with a Volkswagen Type 1 EV1E. I will let you know how that goes.
Yesterday and the day before I made two seperate trips, respectively. On sunday after I bolted in the drivers seat and secured the steering wheel properly, I drove approx 3mi one way, to my local Napa Auto Parts Store. I discovered that they close at 4PM on Sundays so I turned around and went home. The nice thing about driving EVIE which I noticed immediately is that when I let my foot off of the accelerator the state of charge gauge pegged above 100% which means that during that period of time, when I am using the inertia from the weight and velocity of EVIE, I am charging my batteries. When I got home I checked my state of charge and it appeared I only used about 10%. I did notice some brake noise during the trip, so I adjusted the brakes and tried again the next day. This time when I got back I had only used 7%. Both times I put the charger on the car and both times it took approx 2 hours to fully charge. While I was at Napa on Monday, a man named Jason, who was very interested in Evie informed me that CA law requires that I have bumpers. He told me about a Baja which he built and was told he needed bumpers. He told me about the design he used and it sounds perfect for EVIE. I will be posting a sketch of this design for all to peruse.
Until then… Back to the drawing board
Here are more pictures of Evie. These were taken on the 17th after I readjusted the top and doors. The doors fit much better now. What you can’t see from the pictures, I had to shave off just a sliver of the inside fender well to allow better clearance for the wheels and tires. I have decided to mount the 12 Volt fuse block/wire harness on the center tunnel behind the emergency brake. This will give me easy access. This car has a center console and all I will have to do to check or change a fuse is lift the door on the console. The console also has channels built into it which I can run my harnesses through.
The push is to get her street legal so that I can start driving her to work. Some of the members of Team Evie are coming this weekend to help. There are many rivers to cross before we get there.
On Aug 9th 2009 (yours truly’s birthday) I had a few friends over for a bar-b-que. Each one got to ride in Evie down the block and back again, for a total of 6 trips. The batteries are still ready for another run. I sent my battery charger to Sacramento for re-calibration. It was set up for 18 8V batteries, and I am using 12 12V batteries. When I get it back I will fully charge the batteries and see what this baby will do. I am wearing a large smile these days just knowing I am so close to seeing a dream become a reality. In case you are wondering what ever became of the two Bradley’s I was using for parts, here is the answer. I gave the rust bucket gray beast to Greg at Bugformance of Stockton as a core for the brand new transmission Evie is sporting now. I asked him at the time if he would let me have parts as needed and he could keep the rest. Well the darn thing sat in his yard for about 1 year I had taken the top and one of the doors off of it and then he finally he sold it or gave it away to a guy named Jon Connolly. He also told Jon about me and that I might have some “spare parts” for a Bradley. I had a whole car (remember the white one I bought for parts?) so I gave him the other Bradley… Actually that is not quite right, we bartered. He is going to paint my car. He has won awards for his paint jobs. I have decided to paint her Wimbledon White with a Blue GT 40 racing stripe. The pictures below were taken on the day I put Evie’s windshield in.
Today August 4th 2009 at 1435 PDT Evie moved on her own power. I threw a seat in her (didn’t even bolt it in and a steering wheel on her (again, no bolt) and started her up and drove her down the driveway and down the street and back. Then I backed her up the driveway and into her stall. I did this a total of two times. It has been a long road to get to this point but we are here. Here are some photos of Evie on her Maiden Voyage Day.
