The plan so far is:

Step 1: Figure out the location to put the motor and how to attach it so it can drive the car.

Step 2: Get the motor and mount it.

Step 3: Add the speed controller and batteries.

Step 4: Drive away….

Sounds really simple doesn’t it. I am sure it will take months though. I have found a drawing of an Etek mounting bracket from Robot MarketPlace that looks pretty nice. I will order the bracket and probably the Etek PMAC motor from there. For the controller so far I am planning on using the Kelly Controllers KBL72301 It has a 300A Max, 150A continuous current rating and can handle 72V. For batteries it seems like the standard one to use is the Trojan AGM-31. The only issue I am not sure about is where to mount the batteries. I would like to keep the trunk free so if possible I will try to stuff the batteries somewhere else. That is a project for warmer weather though. This winter has been really cold and bad for working on projects.

Today I printed out a properly sized drawing of the bracket and took it out to figure where to mount it. It turns out with the battery removed I have plenty of room to mount the motor where it used to be.

I hung the paper about where the bracket will be mounted. The only things in the way where it is at are the MSD 6A and Fuse panel. Both of them can be easily moved to other places so that is not much of an issue. If the radiator needs moved over a few inches that will also not be a problem, I can move it about 6 inches to the left and still be well clear of the exhaust manifold.

Now that I know it should fit without a huge hassle I will go ahead and order the motor and bracket. I will also start looking around to find a way to attach the sprocket to the CV axle and get something made up.

I will be putting it on the car probably next weekend if I have time to do the head swap. I will also be using stainless steel exhaust valves in the head so I should never have a problem with them going bad again. I will post the part numbers for the valves next week when I figure them out.

I put undercoating on them after taking the pics. They are sealed to the belly pan and a small opening is all that is left for the tie rod and CV joint. I kept the back side open and will find out after driving it for a few days how the air flows in and out of that hole by the dirt patterns. If the air is flowing into the car then it is working good pulling air pressure out of the wheel well. If not I can either modify the opening or just seal it up. I plan on in the future making air scoops of some sort for in front of the wheels to take care of the airflow around the tires.

That was basically all that was left before cleaning it up for the town of Chapmanville car show. The show had lots of rain so there weren’t many cars there. I got plenty of pictures though.

The alignment was way off on the car and I aligned it myself using some strings and laser pointers. I have it set for 0 toe so it wanders a bit on the road but nothing real bad. I also had to move the battery into the trunk, with the 14 inch tires there was just no room left to put the battery in the front without moving everything around. It was easier to just install it in the trunk and not have to deal with it.

With the battery and most of the tire rubbing issues fixed the last thing was get an exhaust on the car. I tried making my own but without a proper exhaust pipe bender it is hard to do without crimping the pipe so I took it somewhere and had an exhaust made for it.

It clears everything and the car is able to go over 60 again without the egt sensor going over 1800 degrees. I hold a nice steady 1000 degrees cruising and 1200 at wide open. And the car is finally nice and quiet.

I have a few minor issues to tend to before I start driving it but if all goes well I will be driving it daily soon.

Edit:
I forgot to put on here I finally got a weight on the car. It comes in at 1510lbs. That is with a full tank of gas and all fluids. So the weight isn’t anything amazing but it is still pretty good for the way the car was built since I tried to make the car strong and 100k mile reliable instead of focusing on weight.

After it has bent to shape while it was still hot I put the glue on it and quickly put it back together so the glue would dry fast. Then let it cool down and dry and cut off the excess. Once that is done all that is left is to mask it off and paint the border black.

And it is done

The board and upside down jackstand are holding the side skirt down while the glue on it dries. It came away from the body and did not want to stay put so there is enough glue on it now it should be stuck for a long time.

Car should be ready to show off tomorrow. There will be a lot of good pictures of it soon.

I took the pictures before painting them so it would be easier to see how they fit. I will probably need to trim around the axles and tie rods to make them clear without rubbing but they seem to work ok for now. I will try and drive the car about 25 miles tomorrow then start cleaning it up for the car show Saturday.

The exhaust is about an inch away from the Coroplast so it might possibly melt it over time. If it does I will just cut that section away and replace it with aluminum flashing so the bottom will stay nice and smooth. I ran out of screws so I will have to go back later and attach the covers on a bit better but they are on good enough for now. After the car show I will be taking the entire cover off the bottom anyway so I can get the wheels aligned. I also put the trim back in the trunk so it is looking pretty good now.

Nobody will steal gas out of this car now with the gas cap in the trunk. It might be annoying to fill it up but as little as the car needs gas it isn’t a big deal. The second picture you can see how deep the trunk is. I can get small stuff in there but it is only about 14 inches high from the floor to the trunk lid so nothing big is going to fit in there.

After they had a chance to dry for about 6 hours I started putting the last stuff together. I had the brackets already made up for the seats so they are finally bolted down now and secured. The Coroplast belly pan is pretty straightforward to install now that the bottom of the car is totally flat with nothing in the way. I only got the rear sections done. I am trying to install it in a way that the main parts can be removed if needed to work on the car easily. I will probably make a center section in the front cover that can be removed to get at the engine without taking the entire front panel out. It will be used for changing oil and any minor work that needs done. Anything larger will require removing the whole panel but that should not be that hard really.

I will probably leave it white since there is no way it can be seen easily. I will have to take the back bumper off and fix some bad places in it next so while it is off I will paint the inside black where it can be seen from the back grille as shown in the second to last picture.

So tomorrow’s pictures should show a really nice looking car and so far I am on schedule to hit the road in the car this weekend.