[mattW]

First of all congratulations! Its great to see another person getting excited about the advantages of electric cars! Unfortunately, most EV conversions as far as i know are more likely to add weight than to lower it, although the motors are significantly lighter this gain is offset by the large volume of batteries required for significant range. The main question you need to ask is; What do you want to use the car for? Generally speaking electric cars at this stage of production need to compromise on at least one area. It is possible to contruct a light car with great performance but it will generally cost a bit more and have a short range between charges. If you would like a car that can travel large distances you may have to compromise the performace by adding more battery weight. It is possible to have both range and performace but it put your bank balance on a serious diet (see Tesla Roadster). Electric cars are excellent for specific applications and by doing the conversion yourself you are able to completely customise this to your own needs. The 280Z is quite a good car for a conversion because is has plenty of room for batteries and is resonable aerodynamic. Also, the 280Z added both a larger engine and more 'luxury' items to the 240 and 260 so it would be possible to reduce a lot of the curb weight with the removal of some of those items. There is a link on the forums about conversion kits, Electro Automotive is the most experienced and is a good place to start looking, but it is also good to shop around. Their conversion kits start at US$5575 + Batteries. Your car is a on the heavier end of the scale for conversions so when looking for a kit you should probably look at the more powerful motors and controllers. Hope you have found this helpful, if not there is plenty more information at your fingertips by browsing these forums and the rest of the internet. Welcome to the wonderful world of EVs!

 

[mattW]

Generally the biggest factor that effects range is the batteries. If you are only doing short trips and don't want to add too much weight to the car then you could use 10-12 12V batteries. Conversions that require longer rangers (need more capacity) generally use 20-24 6V batteries to make up the same voltage but with many more Ah of capacity. To get a general idea of performance and range try this ev calculator: http://www.evconvert.com/tools/evcalc/ There is already a 1975 280Z in the system so you will be able to see how your design choices effect the final product.
Two things to check when buying the car is for rust and whether it is a manual. Automatic transmissions make conversions quite a bit more complicated.

 

[mattW]

The limits to how many batteries you use are weight and price. The cheapest i have seen t105's is about US$140 +shipping and they weigh 62 pounds each. So for 24 your talking $3360 and 1488lbs. 36 would probably be pushing the weight limits of the car. For long range vehicles a lot of people convert suv's or light trucks. You can fit a lot of batteries under/in the tray and they are rated to carry the weight. You might want to do a bit of research in other ev's that have acheived the performace you are after so you can see how expensive/how possible it is to do.

 

[mattW]

Yeah the fiat stood out to me as well. It looks great and would make a nice conversion. Check out these three:
http://www.austinev.org/evalbum/1131
http://www.austinev.org/evalbum/401
http://www.austinev.org/evalbum/111

If you look at the last link, this guy squeezed in 15 8V batteries into the car, you would have to work out if there was enough room for 24. Otherwise looks good.

 

[mattW]

Sounds good buddy, think you should go for it. Hope it all goes well!