e-car

Mike and Dave are converting a Mazda MX-5 to an electric car. Eddie is not greatly involved but helped removing the engine on April fools day 2009.
There is a photo gallery.

See also this blog and the EVAlbum page.

There are over 2000 electric vehicles in the EVAlbum. So we wanted to make this one somewhat special in a few ways:
1) A light, sporty, fun "donor vehicle" (really the recipient).
2) Better performance than the original petrol engine.
3) AC drive for good torque at higher revs.
4) An advanced battery, probably LiFePO4, as they have long cycle life (2000-3000 cycles), don't catch fire, and (some versions) can dish out significant current.
5) The usual creature comforts: air conditioning, power steering if deemed desirable, etc.
6) We hope to do several conversions of the same or similar model, so we can amortise the learning curve.

We settled on the Mazda MX-5, largely because Dave has always wanted one, and it's fairly light, definitely sporty, definitely fun, and common enough to buy at a reasonable price. In retrospect, it might have been better to try and find an Audi with an aluminium chassis (e.g. this conversion).

Our first donor is a 1990 MX-5, with a 1.6L engine. Later models have a 1.8L engine that can be dropped into the older models; the current model has a 2L engine. That means we can drop in stronger brakes etc. from the 1.8L versions. It corners like it's on rails, revs out to 7500 RPM, has the typical Mazda notchy gearbox, and is a lot of fun.



As Dave was testing it in petrol form (got to have a baseline for comparison, right?) he decided it really needed power steering. There are models with power steering that are a drop in replacement, so our first job was to install the power steering rack and associated components.

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