September 2011 to 2015
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Sept 6, 2011 - After much fiddling with the bodywork, I finally am ready to take it to the paintshop. |
Oct 1, 2011 - The paint shop was quite busy so they didn't actually start to spray the final coat on until October. It looks quite orange in this picture because of the lights in the shop. The real colour is much more yellow. |
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Oct 10, 2011 - All back together and ready to be appraised for the insurance. |
| Oct 11, 2011 - Getting ready to trailer the car to get the Safety Inspection done. |  |
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Oct 13, 2011 - I was more than a little nervous when I went to the MOT office to finalize the registration as an electric vehicle. As it turned out, It was quite straight forward. I was issued my new ownership, plates, and EV stickers within about 10 minutes. |
| Oct 16, 2011 - Finally got a short break from all the rain we've been having lately and got to drive around the neighbourhood legally. The performance is awsome. First gear is pretty well useless - all you get is wheel spin. I ended up just leaving it in 3rd gear and driving it as if it was an automatic. |  |
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Oct 21, 2011 - The car looked too plain being all yellow so I decided to add a racing stripe. I designed the stripe using a halftone fade at the edges and my logo and Danger High Voltage warning on the rear deck. It was printed on clear vinyl so that the yellow would show through. |
| Oct 23, 2011 - Just got everything finished just in time for the annual EVFest electric car show in Toronto. I won first prize for Best Technical Construction. |  |
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Nov 1, 2011 - Now that I've driven the car around a few times, I decided that I didn't like the 5-point racing harness that I had installed. Too bulky and awkward. I welded some brackets on to the roll bar and installed a pair of regular 3-pont seat belts that I had salvaged from the Suzuki Swift. Much better and more comfortable. |
Nov 2, 2011 - 15°C today and no rain - time for a drive around the neighbourhood. Lots of stop-and-go. Here is some data that I logged: Distance - 26.9 km I was quite pleased. That's only 100Wh/km which translates to 0.6¢/km based on off-peak charging. |
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Oct, 2013 - We got a little rain and wet snow at the slalom at the end of the day and it took the better part of the next Sunday to clean the car up. |
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May, 2014 - One of the things I learned from the slalom is that I need much better seating so I'm not struggling to stay in the seat. I found another Porsche 914 seat and stripped all the upholstery off it. I painted it with truck bed coating. That stuff is fabulous. Goes on easy, no streaks, no-gloss finish, and really durable. I also installed a proper race-approved 5 point harness. The last thing on my list was a new set of 15" rims and some Hankook C71 super soft tires. |
November, 2015 - Well another year and a half has gone by and for one reason or another, I never did get the car back to the track. I tried to find a young experienced driver that would join me in running the car in the autocross championship but no one was interested. Driving the car around on the street sure attracted a lot of attention but even that got boring pretty quick. Total accumulated mileage is 138 km. I guess I just miss the sound, the smell and boost of adrenalin from driving an internal combustion engine car. Electric cars are economical, quiet and good for the environment but they are as exciting as driving a forklift truck. |
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So this is the end of the story. The electric motor, batteries and controls have been sold. The rest of the car cries out for either a Hayabusa or a Ford/Hewland but I'm leaving that project to someone else.
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