more pictures

Things are looking good! I installed the Evnetics TPS and the Netgain speed sensor, and rewired the vacuum pump to be on a relay. All went well, I went for a 10 mile or so test drive and had no cutouts or faults. I did lots of experimenting with settings, I’ve settled (at least for now) on 400a battery side and 750a motor side. I’ll just rely on my judgement and right foot control to keep from spinning tires or breaking CV joints… Anyway, with only 400a from the battery I’m not able to get 750a for long at all off the line, but it starts high, then holds over 600a for a while (up to about 2000rpm or so). With these settings it’s pretty quick off the line, and certainly fast enough for daily driving with a little fun when desired. I will still hit a low voltage alarm on the MiniBMS if I try to sustain more than 300ish amps for too long, so I set the low voltage ‘soft’ limit to 135 volts in the Synkromotive software. This lets me use up to 400a briefly, and the controller will taper it back for me when needed. It seems to work well, I did some intentionally hard pulls and never heard the alarm after setting this limit. I never felt any kind of cutback, the controller handles it smoothly. I’ll have to go back to my test road soon and re-test the 0-60.

here's a bunch of photo's from the weekend:

the old potbox

From 2011-11-06 synkro

the custom cable holder. just a simple piece of sheetmetal bent and drilled to hold the nub on the end of the cable. the holes in the TPS bracket are already the perfect size for this, so the cable is sandwiched between the arm and this little bracket. each side holds the nub, and it's free to rotate. simple and effective.

From 2011-11-06 synkro

here is the arm with the cable attached

From 2011-11-06 synkro

here's the whole throttle assembly attached. it is truly a piece of beauty! I'm not sure my car is worthy of such a nice part. it certainly deserves a nicer mounting bracket...

From 2011-11-06 synkro

here is the Netgain speed sensor. Very easy to install, the only challenging part was that my motor endshaft had just enough surface rust on it to keep the collar from sliding on. i had to remove the wheel to get better access, then lightly sand the shaft with some 600 grit paper to smooth it up enough to install the collar. although looking at this photo, i can see that I accidentally lined up one of the set screws with the keyway. dang, I'll have to get back in there and rotate it a bit.

From 2011-11-06 synkro

here's the controller! the small terminal block right in front of it holds the connections to the speed sensor and the throttle. The bundle of wires on my heater controls box are the extra wires not needed for my installation (reversing contactor controls, various outputs, etc). Not sure what to do with those yet... all the wires plug into the controller with a nice waterproof connector, which seems a little odd since the controller itself is obviously not waterproof. Anyway, the wires were all nice and long, easy to route and connect up.

From 2011-11-06 synkro

here's the backside. Yes, I'm using a second EV200 contactor for my high voltage accessories. Yes, it's overkill.

From 2011-11-06 synkro

and the overall shot. this is pretty much finished up. You can see the 12v relay next to the terminal strips, that's for the vacuum pump. The loose wires heading down in the front of the photo are going to the motor blower. I still need to clean up and re-route those wires.

From 2011-11-06 synkro

That's it for now. Hopefully it will stay this way for a little while. I do need to put on some of the plastic bits back on up front to get it ready for the rain, but it's basically ready to be my daily driver now.