Honda Civic Electric Conversion

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ACEGOLFCARTGUY

Cartaholic
These are some pictures of my electric powered Honda Civic project. The electric parts are from a 2001 Club Car Villager 4. Eventually I want to upgrade this car or build another one with a 96 volt system and D&D ES-31B motor. Im not able to afford a new 96 volt EV system right now which will cost $4000+. Since I already have the golf cart parts, I decided to use them in this conversion as a learning experience.

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. Depending on how it does during the test run, I will probably remove the shifter and lock the trans in 2nd gear because from what I read most don't need the other gears. Since the motor turns in two directions, reverse gear would come from the golf cart shifter lever mounted in the car or if there is a way to convert it to the rocker switch I want to do that.

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.

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.
 
A

ACEGOLFCARTGUY

Cartaholic
Tracing the transmission pattern on to the adapter plate.

Drilling 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.

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.

The next thing I need to do is buy some batteries and make the racks. Then order a 12 volt vacuum pump to power the brake booster w/ out the I.C.E. I plan on using 2 12 volt batteries, the vacuum pump will be separate from all other 12 volt accessories.
 
JRay

JRay

Cartaholic
You are one hell of a fabricator Ace, looks good. I would like to see this up and running on the road. Price of gas we all need one. :thumbsup:
 
F

fatboy99

New Member
Very Intresting Build Great Fab Skill's Your Weld's Look Like You Tig Welded Them Wish Mine Looked That Good .

I Have A Question Would It Be Better To Eliminate The Forward/Reverse Switch Since You Have Both In The Manaul Tran's ? Would Be 1 Less Place To Drop Voltage And Amps.
Just A Thought Keep Posting Your Progress
Brad
 
A

ACEGOLFCARTGUY

Cartaholic
Thanks everyone!! :cool: The car is coming along really good. 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. :rotflmao: 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 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. I'll have to post a vid of the car on its maiden voyage. :)


The other day I picked up 6 new 8 volt batteries and angle to make the racks. I was also out by the welding store and bought 20 ft. of 2/0 ga welding cable.
I'm going to work on the racks and cables tomorrow. It's going to be a tight fit under the hood with all of those batteries.



Is there a way to wire the motor to spin backwards? I found out that in order to go forward, the motor has to be in reverse. In other words, right now it has 5 reverse gears and one forward. The only thing is the motor seems to spin slower in reverse than forward.
I was also wondering how do you bypass the f/r lever?
 
A

ACEGOLFCARTGUY

Cartaholic
New goodies!!

I can't find a program to upload or convert the video file .DSC. Instead here are some pictures of the cars first day out.
 
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fatboy99

New Member
Ace Are You Running A Curtis Controler?
If You Are (Looks Like One In The Photo) Go To www.curtisinst.com
Put Your Pointer On Industries Go Down The Popup To Golf And Click On It Find Your Controler Model Click On Manaul It Will Give You A Ton Of Info About How To Wire It And Should Help You Figure Out How To Bypass The Direction Lever As For What To Do For More Speed Having To Run The Motor In Reverse Mabe The Folk's At EMP Could Help With That They May Even Be Able To Build Your Motor Up To Run Faster And Stronger In The Oppisate Direction
Hope This Help's Brad
 
HotRodCarts

HotRodCarts

Cartaholic
Looking good Ace...!!! Thanks for the update.

You can change the direction the motor runs by switching the cables hooked to F1 and F2 on the motor.
 
A

ACEGOLFCARTGUY

Cartaholic
HRC my #'s are different. The 4 posts are marked S2 A2 and S1 A1.
A2 runs to A2 on the controller. A1 runs to B+ on the controller. S1 and S2 both run to the f/r.
Do I switch the S1 and S2 cables?
 
A

ACEGOLFCARTGUY

Cartaholic
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

I made some cardboard batteries for mock up.

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

MVC-006S-3.jpg


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.

MVC-009S-1.jpg


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.

Next I cut out of plate to cover the hole where the starter motor 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. They look great on there.
 
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