[johnyac]

Hi All,
New to this forum and curious. I have a 65 2dr wagon that been occupying my garage for the last decade. Its a therapy thing for me slowly piecing it back together. I'm at the chassis point now and I came across the electric S10's online (....sigh... project direction change).

The original dry weight of my wagon is 3140 lbs according to: http://www.oldride.com/library/1965_chevrolet_chevelle.html. Mine has the 230 inline 6cyl.
S10's come in around 3000-3200 (Goggled info please correct if I have this wrong).

The drive:
I commute 18 miles one way, 45mph speed limit max for 80% of the trip if I stay off the freeway.
One, what I would call a steep hill, on the way from work to home (about 2 miles from the house). One, 1/3 the height of the first hill right in front of my home going to work. Other that that, pretty level. Six stop signs and five traffic lights each way.

Advantages:
The wagon still has the original manual steering box.
It is currently stripped down to a bare shell.
At work, several exterior 3 phase 60-400 amp disconnects are at my disposal if I need to charge there.
I have just refinished a boxed El Camino frame to replace the original one. Some added weight(30-60lbs?), but much stiffer.

Suggestions for a good combo of batteries/quantity and motors to look into?

I work for a living, so please, no flux capacitor subatomic fusion driven suggestions. For now, lead acid is fine by me.

 

[dtbaker]

you've got plenty of room for batteries!

Given your modest needs, I think you could get by with 9" DC motor, modest 1221 curtis (400 amp, 120v max) or curtis 1231 controller (500 amp and higher v max), and would seriously suggest going with Lithium on first build.

If you want higher performance, go with the 1231, but then you should also consider minimum of 160 ah cells, and/OR bumping pack voltage up to 144v to prevent over-3C problems.

lithium is more up front (probably $5k or $6 for 120v worth of 100ah cells), but you'll have WAY better performance, and lower cost per mile over the life of the pack.

 

[nimblemotors]

Always liked the old 2-door wagons.
Might take a look at this chevelle for some ideas,
http://www.poormansev.com/index.html

Nice job on the powerglide and motor, might be a good way to go for you.

I'd try to lighten it up with some fiberglass panels (hood fenders roof bumpers, rear glass), as these cars are pretty heavy metal.

The upside of the wagon space is a downside of having fumes from batteries in the passenger compartment. So while some flooded golf cart batteries are proabably a cheap way to go and you can handle the weight, you'll need to isolate them in the back, probably put a lot in front though.

The flux capacitor lithium is not cheap yet (getting there slowly), so if you're going to do this slow, leave the batteries till last, start looking for a good 9-11 inch motor and get the trans setup, scout out a controller, and maybe throw in some car free start batteries to test it out.

 

[drivin98]

A shooting brake!

Yeah, maybe leave the batteries till last but still, lithium. Just keep the pack small and the weight down. Lead's will be more expensive once you replace them in a few years and the performance advantage is huge.