[notailpipe]

Well, with three and a half estimated months left to finish my build, it’s about time I start a build thread, complete with pictures for the eye-candy addicts.

Here’s my car, a 1990 Honda CRX. Ain’t he a gem? Yes, I said he. As my wife always says, he is a stick shift. I got him last summer, and we named him C-Rex.



When we got him, he had 3” lowering springs on him and it would bottom out on every bump in the road. I replaced those with a 1 ½” lowering, with increased spring stiffness performance coils for better handling (and anticipating a slightly heavier endcar, even with lithiums). I also found a nice set of Enkei rims that are just a touch scuffed up – when the conversion’s finished I plan to repaint them pearl silver. The rest of the car will also be receiving a paint job after the electric conversion is finished, new windshield, new rubber moldings, etc. What, you don’t like cancerous sunspots on the top of your roof?

Although this is a build thread and not a blog, people often ask me why I am bothering with all this, so I thought I’d say it once. I’m converting my car because I want the U.S. to be less reliant on foreign oil. Will my car make a difference? I don’t kid myself. But slowly the country is turning its eyes to electric and I hope to be one of the early users. Additionally, I was born and raised in the Motor City, and cars are a huge part of my life. Being an electrical engineer as well, it’s the perfect blend of interests to make a great (and expensive) hobby. My goal for the car is to be fast, fun to drive, practical range, and intuitive to use. I want any of my friends to be able to borrow the car and not have to explain “well, just click that lever three times to prime the pump… and you can’t use the heat while you’re using valet mode…” or whatever. The car HAS to have an intuitive OEM look and feel or the American public will never want one.

But they will want a C-Rex…

[notailpipe]

Fast forward six months. My little sister has been driving C-Rex for several months now (since her car died). She must have bad car luck or something because C-Rex died and there was oil in the spark plugs. I took that as a sign – the EV conversion would now begin!

And by “conversion” I mean several more months of saving money for the build and finishing other projects around the house before starting another headache for my wife in the garage.

[notailpipe]

Finally, time to get our hands dirty! A couple friends came over and we made short work of C-Rex. We pulled everything down to the engine in one day. In fact, we almost got the engine out too but had hangups separating the engine from the transmission. I wanted to try to keep the transmission in there if I could help it.



I’m not gonna miss you, you underpowered, least-powerful engine to ever grace a beautiful CRX. Nor will I miss your blown valve cover gasket and leaky radiator that I covered with aluminum foil.



Thanks, sis, for filling the gas tank up fully right before the engine died! Haha. At first I thought I was going to have to disconnect the fuel line and use the fuel pump to empty the tank. Luckily, my (all?) gastank had a drain plug that did the trick. I was worried about the flow being so great that I wouldn’t be able to put the plug bolt back in and would have explosive gas spilling all over my garage. But I quickly learned that it drains very slowly if I just put the filler cap back on. So if you’re doing a conversion yourself, don’t worry about that part. We ended up filling two of these storage bins worth of gas, which I happily put in Lexi, my wife’s car.



Here I cleanly watch and take pictures from afar as my friends remove exhaust parts. I hate working on exhaust parts. Thankfully I have an awesome impact air wrench that made short work of every bolt it ever met. And awesome friends that wanted to learn about cars. Lesson one, get under there and remove those exhaust parts! It is the most fun part of the whole conversion!



Now the real fun begins – engine removal! My wife joined us for this part, in addition to being a faithful supporter of the EV, she brings a level of enthusiasm that is refreshing for people like me who already know how to rip out the engine. Here’s us donning our favorite headlamps (I love those things), and our friend Mark who stubbornly refused. At least Mark knows how to tie knots.



We got the engine all tied up and lifted with the hoist, but alas, it wasn’t to be that day. There wasn’t enough room in the engine bay for the engine and transmission to separate and come clear. We came back another day, refreshed, and me having a good idea from my CRX forum. I piled firewood under the transmission, popped the CV shafts, and we let the transmission fall (onto the firewood which catches it) out below the car, thus freeing the engine to come out the top.



Freedom!!! We then put the transmission back in the car and towed it to our detail guy who power washed and steam cleaned the whole engine bay. You could eat off that surface! This was well worth the twenty bucks he charged me, since I saved hours and hours of the messiest job on earth, fifty million rolls of shop towel, and probably gallons of Simple Green. I mean, just look at it:



Time to go relax and have a cold one. I thought about selling some of the parts to recoup some costs, but in the end I'm so impatient and didn't think it was worth my time dealing with Craigslist deadbeats, so I ended up posting it all for free online. It was all gone the same night.

[favguy]

Very nice so far, your engine bay looks just wonderful!

Paul

[gor]

beautifull...
N., what you planning to put on it? ... sorry, - on he? : ))))

[powerhouse]

Cant believe how clean he made the engine bay... beautiful! Anxious to read more!

[notailpipe]

Thanks, guys, for all the kind words.

I plan to put in a WarP9 and 45 130Ah CALBs in there, with a Zilla-1K. It should be much faster than the original car, which was the DX, but it should be much faster than even an Si (sports version).

The car will look much better when it gets its new paint job this spring. I've got a new hood, new fenders, front lip, and am going to do a couple simple aero mods to it.

New update to come soon, am writing it up...

[notailpipe]

The next weekend I took a short interlude from the EV, but worked on something related. I had always planned to do some welding for the conversion. So I wanted to practice my welds before working on anything critical, so I built a cart to hold my welder. Yes, those are perfectly working (cheapie china) socket wrenches that hang the cables. Figured that gave my cart a little personality.

Next update to come: mating the motor to the transmission!

[notailpipe]

The next step was to mate my new WarP9 with my existing transmission. I decided to keep the transmission to optimize both range and acceleration, as well as stock OEM feel. I also replaced the clutch at this point, since it’s all open and apart. I went with a Stage-2 Organic clutch plate. From my research, an OEM or even Stage 1 clutch would probably be unable to handle the torque I aim to throw at it. And a Stage 3 (or Hockey Puck) clutch would be too uncomfortable/annoying to drive, due to the stronger springs. That went against my goal to keep it feeling like a daily driver, so I went with Stage 2. Since an EV needs no “friction feathering” when starting from a stop and thus there is only wear in between shifting gears, I fully expect this new clutch to long outlast the rest of the vehicle. I also got the lightest chromoly flywheel I could find – an 8 pounder made by Fidanza (the stock one weighed in at 20lbs). This is actually a pretty big deal. It should lower my rotational mass quite a bit, helping with range and acceleration. And since I don’t need to balance out any vibrations like in an ICE car, I can go with the lightest weight possible.

To mate the two, I went with an off-the-shelf adapter plate and hub coupler made by Randy at CanEV. My friend has a CNC mill and so I entertained the thought of building it myself, but in the end, time is money and I only have so many hours a week to work on the project. Premade solutions are my friend. I estimate I would’ve spent probably 40 hours measuring, drawing in CAD, cutting in wood, testing, recutting in aluminum, etc. That’s 40 hours I’d rather be driving my car. All in all, the adapter is awesome and was well worth the price tag. There is a good reason Randy’s cost the most – you get what you pay for. Everything I needed, bolts, shaft key, Loctite, etc., was included in the package. Additionally, Honda Civics/CRXs have quite a large “magic number” that would typically mean a very thick and heavy spacer in all the other adapters I considered. The one from CanEV is cast and thus any shape they want. Full disclosure: I actually lost two months on the project trying to get an adapter from another source for cheaper, but was unhappy with the adaptor that evolved out of that large magic number and wasn’t what I’d agreed to purchase. To their credit, they refunded my money with no hassle and were really upright people, so their names won’t be revealed. I think my case was an isolated case. And so if you have a Honda, just get this adapter.



Here’s the coupler mounted to the electric motor. I used a little lubricant to get the coupler on there; it is such a tightly machined fit. Tap it on with a rubber mallet until it bottoms out against the shaft bottom, then torque the locking allen bolts firmly. Everything at this point, I mean everything, gets a coat of red Loctite to prevent loosening from any vibrations (though there aren’t likely to be many with an electric motor).



Here’s the side view after bolting the adapter plate to the motor. I’ve also already mounted the new flywheel in this picture. See what I mean about the custom casting of the thick spacing between the motor and the adapter face? That would normally be a thick spacer ring of aluminum, adding unneeded weight.



Here I’ve installed the new clutch plate and clutch housing to the assembly. It’s now ready to slip the transmission shaft in, aligned to the clutch plate, and mate the two assemblies. Below is the final powertrain assembly – ready to be mounted!

[dimitri]

Excellent build thread, subscribing.... good luck with your project!

I hope you didn't forget to change direction of brush advancement on Warp9 since Hondas turn in opposite direction. Also keep that in mind when wiring your motor's field and armature, make sure it spins in proper direction.

That adapter plate and shaft coupler look awesome! Randy certainly knows his stuff.