New Logo and sponsorship!

Well we have a great new logo for the project! One of my students from last year (Josh B.) did an excellent job creating a project logo. We are now working on creating a group logo for "Los Rayos Engineering" for some crew shirts that will be donated by Mission Federal Credit Union.

Great news came from Curtis Instruments who is the manufacturer of electric motor controls. The needed controller for the project and associated electric controls have been donated to the project! This is a donation of approximately $1600! Thank you Curtis Instruments!

Weekly update: getting things together...

Since removing the ICE engine, we have managed to remove the transmission and flywheel from the engine. We also managed to place the engine onto the engine stand. We have a couple of pictures of the empty engine bay and Marcus basically in the engine bay helping to put the hood back on. Once we had the engine on the stand, I had some of the crew remove the valve cover. There is Shannon learning to use a ratchet and going to see the cam and timing chain! The students were very interested to see the inside of an internal combustion engine. Just seeing the cam and timing chain and a brief explanation of how it works (valves) amazed them to how complicated it looked and how well they kept on running. There are hundreds of moving parts inside an engine, lots of places for friction and wasted energy! They agreed...

I ordered the adapter plate after measuring the "magic number" (measurement of rearmost of engine to the flywheel clutch surface), which is 1 5/16 inches, I had a chance to go to the "Kick Gas Club" garage and get some help from the master EV converter Abran Quevedo (Mr. Q or just Q). His brother is a retired machinist so he will be making the adapter plate. Q gave myself and Dan (another EV enthusiast who I took the conversion class with) a drive in his "Little Red" VW Rabbit convertible. He sure is tough on his car! Accelerates and moves just like a normal car, but with MUCH less noise. Sitting at a stop sign is absolutely quiet...

Next steps is to start measuring out the battery space, taking a look at the suspension and other things for wear. I will most likely do very little other than support the suspension and then restore brakes, etc as they are needed (as suggested by my brother-in-law, Robert, the master mechanic). I do see his wisdom, I could go and start replacing things that MAY need replacing, but don't fix what is not broken!

Hopefully we get to order the motor soon and get the adapter plate and transmission all matched up and put together. Making the motor support is another issue, but it looks like I have flexibility as to where it will connect. Lots to do! Until later...

ICE Motor Removed!

All of us were very excited about this moment! We were planning on doing this on Saturday, but the entire morning there was pouring rain! Very disappointing... However, we got the transmission all taken care of. When Alex, Marcus and Michael removed the transmission cross member, we were shocked to see how much the transmission sagged down! So we ingeniously tied it up from inside the car. We were ready to pull the last four bolts and lift out the motor.

We started to get everything in place when we could not get the engine lift under the car. We saw that the lower control arms were just a tad too low to get the lift all the way in. So, let's lift the car a bit, right? We get a bit further then hit the jacks! Should of thought about that... When we finally got it in as far as we could the bumper kept the lift from reaching to the motor. Darn 280Z's have such a long front end! Could we get the lift in place? We tried to think of doing it from the side, but that would not work. So the guys removed the front bumper, voila, just right! Strapped it up, tightened everything we could and started to lift it a bit. Removed the last four bolts (I can't believe that only four bolts kept the engine up) and got ready... It started to slowly rise and quite easy at first. We cleared the engine bay, with the front of the motor. Then the oil pan. Then... We were a bit short. Hmmm... Ah! Lower the jacks! The lift had cleared the lower control arms so we let it down that few inches. Ok, let's keep it going, then... The lift could go no higher! What were we going to do?! We were committed, so we put our thinking caps on... Let's see if all of that weight lifting pays off. I climbed into the engine compartment and lifted! Just enough to clear! We moved the whole engine and transmission to the next parking stall and hmm.. just leave it there? Well, for now. Next we will disconnect the transmission and engine to get at the clutch, pressure plate and flywheel. Then we can mount the engine onto the engine stand. Thought it would be cool to be able to take a look at the insides of the motor for a learning experience. All of that complicated pieces of moving metal! It has worked well, but the time has come for a more efficient and much less complicated mode of transportation!

All of us were so excited to get the engine out! It was surprisingly easy, all of that nervousness and anticipation really tired me out... Now to the challenging part, designing the electronic drive components and putting the new parts IN. That under dash mess of wires is a concern, but not insurmountable. Next is to get things rolling to build an adapter plate... More to come...