EV Trans Am

As my wife says it takes almost as long to post happenings here as it does to do happenings.

13 hours in this week doing battery racks. I know because I got a timecard from Fabricator Mike. I got another couple in this weekend touching up some stuff.

• Removed, painted and reinstalled battery racks (they are bolted to mounts that are welded to the frame)
• Installed the forced air cooling on the motor, excluding wiring
• Found out the zolox speed sensor and kit do NOT work on a WarP 11.  Hopefully some modification (more than expected, I knew it wasn’t a perfect fit) will make it work.
• Layout of the rear battery pack and removal of rear carpet and plastics.

Neighbor Mike has a big Ford Expedition so we expeditioned ourselves to our local Sears Auto Center and picked up 13 Diehard Platinum P1s last Saturday. They are equivalent to the Oddysey PC1500 I was eyeing up, but about $50 less each so I’ll give them a go. The best part was customers weren’t allowed in the work area unless they had eye protection. Neighbor Mike jumped right in and helped loading, but in doing so took the only extra pair of safetly glasses they had. So I scoped out the vending machines while they loaded 650 lbs of batteries.

I did help unload and then moved them into the garage on a pallet though. I’d never heard it before but people are saying that leaving a battery on concrete will drain it. One idea I thought made sense is that the concrete remains cooler than the ambient air so the electrolyte separates at the bottom. The slight differential created eddy currents which drain the battery. I remember hearing about those at UF, but I don’t know what they are. I do know they aren’t used to build roads and were not on the PE exam.

The motor was delivered last Monday. It was a bit of an experience, or so I hear.

I thought I had requested and paid extra for residential delivery, meaning a truck with a lift on it. I had not. So I got an email on Friday evening that the motor would be delivered on Monday by Fedex Freight, between 1 and 3 pm and someone would need to be there to help unload the motor.

There were two problems with that. The first was that my wife and I were going to be on vacation, far out of town and probably without phone access. The second was that I hadn’t expected to have to unload 300 lbs from a delivery truck, rather, that I would have to ask someone to skip work and unload 300 lbs from a delivery truck for me.

After much headscratching I was explaining my situation to neighbor Mike who was going to watch the cats while we were gone. Good old neighbor Mike (you’ll recall him from the engine removal too) offered to help brother James unload the truck. But brother James could only stay until 2:30!

Fortunately the motor showed up at about 2:20 and they got it unloaded and dragged inside. So here it is, a WarP11, waiting to be mated to the Trans Am, now renamed “Trans Amped”. Very cool.

I'm heavier than 250 lbs...

Torque Monster.. if I got the batteries right

Summary of motor order and delivery:
1 – Getting shipping quotes, delivery by truck with lift gate is smart, but only if you remember to do it from the vendor you choose to order from in the end.
2 – Total time from mailing the check to motor receipt was about 7 weeks for the WarP 11.
3 – Those suckers are heavy. Real heavy, so I hear.
4 – You ought to do something nice for neighbors and brothers that help you out.

The engine is out!  Combination of jacking the transmission and removing the engine mounts from the frame and it came out relatively easy.  Jeff and Mike helped.  That sucker’s heavy.

This is where the lift needs to go, where I neatly piled all my parts

Actually we ended up putting the hoist around the front right tire (after moving all those parts).  We tried removing the tire but the jack was already supporting the engine so we couldn’t lift the car.  Neighbor Mike went to get his jack and while he was gone we worked on loosening the lug nuts.  Instead of loosening, the whole tire would twist, so we just turned the wheel to the left to give us the room we needed.

Take that El Guapo!

Excuse me, have you seen my engine?

At this point the transmission was only supported by the jack and the mounts near the driveshaft.  I’ll remove the center console and support it from within the car with a pipe and a ratchet strap like I did when I changed the clutch (400 miles ago).

Here it is! That clutch sure looks good.

Neighbor Mike offered me his fuel disconnect tool.  Since the fuel lines were one of the few remaining attachments to the engine I took him up on it, as well as his offer of help.  We couldn’t get the tool to work with the tight spacing under the cowl, so we removed the fuel line and injectors from the intake.  Once we had room to work it just took brute force to push the tool into the release clips, freeing the fuel lines from the rail.

Mike was willing to stick around and keep helping so we tackled the passenger side exhaust manifold.  We removed it out the bottom after disconnecting the AIR fittings from the top and the EGR pipe near the y-pipe connection.  Those things are heavier than they look.  I’d like to bring the bathroom scale out and weigh everything that is coming off to get an idea of how much extra weight is being added once complete.

Because I’m removing the engine from the top, I’ve decided to remove as much as possible from the block to make maneuvering easier.  So we removed the intake and the driver’s side cylinder head.  We found out that when you remove the first cylinder head bolt coolant spews out.  We decided to let it since it comes out more controlled there than from the water pump, but I’m sure that more will come out the water pump when that comes off too.  I also found out that the coolant line that runs between the cylinder heads is a major pain to get a wrench on strong enough to break free.  After almost stripping it, I opted to bend it by rotating the cylinder head so I could get a socket on it.  Then it removed easily.  Hopefully if it is needed again the bending didn’t hurt it, it seems pretty flexible.

Why would someone put a bolt way back here?

It was neat to see the cylinder heads off the car and poke around at the valves and springs.  The engine bay is really opening up as some of the larger parts come out giving me hope of squeezing a couple of batteries up there.

140k Miles

There were some metal flakes in the back 2 cylinders, on the pushrods too.

Neighbor Mike takes parts off fast

One of the junkyards near us has changed to a scrap metal dealer so I’m hopeful I can take the exhaust and other miscellaneous metal there instead of just throwing it out.  If I can get $70 or more for it, the project thus far would actually be a gain as far as budget.  I’m sure that wouldn’t last too long though.