So, the motor adventure continues. It’s been right at six months since I paid Mark Klemkosky at Matches Motors for my Warp 13 motor; little did he, I, or Netgain know at that point how much of a hassle my order would end up being. And yesterday, I got a call, the gist of which is that I’m going to have to provide part of it myself.

After weeks of going back and forth between Mark, and George at Netgain with my unusual requirements, I started dealing with Netgain more directly. Bouts of email correspondence would trail off into nothing for a month or two, then a report of more problems or protests from Netgain and/or Warfield engineers would arrive, complaining that the design won’t work for one reason or another. The original plan seemed very simple to me, but then I suppose most wrongheaded ideas probably do to those like me who aren’t knowledgeable enough to understand.

What I wanted to do was simply mill a spline on the motor shaft, and put a slip yoke on it to attach directly to a driveshaft going to the rear differential. The yoke would slip on the motor shaft as if it were a transmission output shaft, and the minimum of parts would help keep the whole setup lightweight, strong, and vibration free. Unfortunately, things are not going to be this simple. First of all, with the level of torque I’m expecting from this motor, I believe the only choice for a shaft material is either a hardened chrome-moly like 8620 or 9310, or a hard stainless which might not end up as tough but would be easier to manufacture since it wouldn’t need to be hardened. For whatever reason, this has presented a major problem for Netgain, who cannot make the shaft from anything but 1144 “Stressproof” which is a weaker low-carbon steel. It’s fine for industrial motors, but it’d have to be well over 3″ thick to handle the torque I believe this motor will produce, and all we have on the output is 1.37″.

Well, the final word arrived yesterday. I can do what I’m wanting to do, but I’m going to have to provide them with a shaft. They’ve mailed me the engineering drawings of the shaft dimensions the motor requires, and I will take the drawings to a machinist. I’ll then ship the completed shaft to them and they can then assemble the motor.

I have no idea how much it will cost, but I’m guessing it will be several hundred dollars. I hope it’s not in the 4-digit range; sadly I don’t even know if that’s a reasonable fear.

Beyond all that though, as I said to George I can’t really complain too much here. I’m not buying a normal motor, and I’m not using it in a normal conversion. I didn’t expect I’d get my motor quickly, and since I’m not really even ready for it yet, I’m not bothered too much by how long this is taking. I’m glad I didn’t put off the decision to buy the motor until I needed it.

A project like this is full of small milestones that are pretty meaningless from a pragmatic perspective, but are important nonetheless for symbolic reasons. Tonight had one of those moments, in which I emptied the Hombre’s fuel tank, for the last time.

I’d been thinking I’d need to use some kind of pump or siphon arrangement to get the fuel out and I’d been dreading the task for a while. The solution I ended up using turned out to be a lot simpler; Mark Farver suggested I use the fuel pump. I opened the main fuse and relay box under the hood, ripped out the fuel pump relay, and in the contact holes I inserted the ends of a 2-conductor speaker wire. I ran the other end to the fuel tank in back where the disconnected fuel line was inserted into the gas can. Shorting the free ends of the speaker wire together turned on the fuel pump, and I let it run until the tank was empty. It took me 6 trips with the little 2 gallon fuel can, but the result was an empty tank in the Hombre, easily and with no mess.

Since my Integra has to use premium gas, I dumped it in my roommate’s truck. During the process a neighbor mentioned how much less crazy my project now seems, with fuel prices being so high these days. Sad that such a significant looming problem only becomes visible when it can be measured in dollars.

This is incredible news.

Austin’s plans for nationwide promotion of Plug-in Hybrid Vehicles (PHEVs) wowed the EAA representatives packed into a meeting room at the Austin Energy building for the EAA Chapters Conference we hosted here back in April. With so much development and advocacy of electric vehicles having historically come from the west coast (especially California), it was Austin’s moment to shine as a representative from the city discussed the plan to create a market for these vehicles — here in Austin, and in major cities across the country. At the delighted faces of visitors from California and elsewhere, I felt really proud of my city, and the massive project they’re trying to spearhead for the good of the entire country.

Yesterday those plans became public.

Additional reports from KUT, KXAN (click on the video “Promoting Hybrid Cars”), News 8 Austin (click on Push For Plug-Ins video button), and of course our local utility, Austin Energy.

More exciting EV production news, this time from Subaru.

Gizmag reports that Subaru is planning to produce an electric version of its popular Japanese-market R1, which will be called the R1e. I imagine this will also only be marketed in Japan, though perhaps there is hope that Subaru might try the idea here in the US and elsewhere.

From the article, a couple of interesting points. First, the production of the R1e has been pushed by popular demand — people actually want these cars (someone please tell GM; I don’t think they were listening). Second, the stock price actually rose on the news that Subaru would begin producing EVs and hybrids.

As I seem to like to complain about lately, work at the office has been consuming nearly all of my time for the past few months. Given that, I haven’t really had much time to devote to the truck, so it’s been sitting in my driveway for quite a while now. In the past few days some of that’s beginning to change.

First, I’ve finally sold off the remainder of the Saft BB600 batteries that I bought a few months ago when I was hoping they’d be a good power source for the truck. As a bit of background, “BB600″ is a military designation for a flooded 36Ah nickel-cadmium cell, and there are 3 manufacturers that I know of who offer a conforming product. I don’t know much about the GE cells, but the ones from Marathon are reported to produce enormous current, in excess of 2000A. The cells I bought were made by Saft, and as it turns out, aren’t good for much more than 1000A. (They’re still awesome batteries; the specification only calls for around 780A). So although they seem to be well-made cells that substantially over-deliver on both capacity and current, I had to let them go. All 1600lbs or so. Most of that (1300lbs) was in a single shipment I hauled to a freight terminal in a sagging Chevy Silverado late last week.

With those batteries out of the way, I was able to make room to move the truck into the garage, finally. With the advantage of air conditioning in the garage making it much easier to casually tinker from time to time, I’ve managed to start with a few minor disassembly details. I’ve removed a door this evening; the other door, bench seat, and hood will follow this weekend after Saturday’s AustinEV meeting.

I’ll soon be buying an engine crane to donate to AustinEV; this will probably be happening tomorrow so I can start thinking about removing the engine and fuel components.

Now this is something a lot of people have been waiting to see, for a long time.

Rick and Bryan Woodbury of Commuter Cars have pulled it off, delivering the first production Tango T600 to George Clooney. Unlike the familiar blue and red prototypes, this one’s black, and it’s looking really sweet.

0-60 in 4 seconds, 150mph top speed, full NHRA-spec roll cage, dual 9″ Advanced DC FB1-4001 motors and a 2000-amp Zilla controller (the same controller as I’ve bought for my truck project) running at 300VDC, this thing is a rocket. After helping out with modifying the battery tray for a new type of battery when I was in Portland for the Woodburn races a couple years ago, I got a brief opportunity afterward to take a ride as a passenger in the red prototype, with Rick at the wheel. Even with its detuned controller (to break in the new batteries), it accelerated like a cannon shell and took corners with no lean. I haven’t ridden in anything really exotic, but I also haven’t ridden in any sports car of any kind that handles as well as the Tango. All this, in a footprint that’s smaller than some full-size touring motorcycles.

Electrifying Times has a page on the delivery, with a couple large shots of the dude and his new ride.