Revised 2/5/00
Here are the basic electrical features of the Escort converion:
Here's a larger picture of the car than you saw before:
GETTING STARTED:PROBLEMS- The first step is to remove the gasoline engine, fuel tank, and exhaust system. I really don't want to remove the engine myself. It's a lot of work in a tight place. But I haven't had much luck finding someone who will: of two garages I've approached to do the job, one flat out said they didn't do engine R&R, the other said they'd quote a price on the job, but never got back to me (and I've called them a couple times since then, still no quote).
If I can't find a garage, I will have to try to set a weekend aside to do this job myself with the help of a cousin of mine who's a mechanic (dad really doesn't want to get involved with an engine job at his age). Ideally I'd like to find a garage that will do the job at a reasonable price.
Helpful pointers: I've researched EV's over the web. I've read books about doing EV conversions, but I've never seen an EV in person until this Saturday (6/6/98) when I went down to Maryland and saw Chip Gribben's 144 Volt Ford Escort. You can see his Escort at his web page. By the way, his page is one of the best resources for information about EV's. There's a lot of basic information, as well as links to other EV web sites.
Chip was very amiable and helpful. He explained he'd converted the car from a kit he got from KTA a few years ago. The initial conversion made it a 96 volt Escort with an 8" Advanced motor. He was unhappy with the performance of the car, so just recently he converted it to an 144 volt car (using 8 volt batteries instead of 6 volt).
I could see the conversion would have some hard points: specifically, how do you shoe-horn 18 (or in my case 15) batteries into a Ford Escort? It's not easy. Depending on how you do it, you can put 9-11 in the hatchback area. The rest have to go under the hood. There's not a lot of space under the hood because you have to fit your motor, controller, and several other components there. Chip had done a fine job fitting in all his batteries and electrical components.
Then I took the test drive. It was odd turning the key, not to start, just on. I slowly released the clutch, but you don't have to rev up the engine, like on a gasoline car. Quietly the car moved forward. To be honest, I wish the car had more acceleration. I don't like burning rubber, but when you have to pull into busy traffic, you need good acceleration. My car will probably have weaker acceleration since I'm planning on a 120 volt system.
Chip had not modified the suspension, save adding air bags in the rear coil springs. The car handled and braked well under the weight of the batteries. Some EV'ers say you don't need the clutch when you do a conversion. I tried shifting without the clutch and it didn't shift well. Result? The clutch is staying in my Escort.
I bade Chip good bye, thankful to finally have some hands on knowledge I could use in planning my Escort conversion. I mentioned to him about the trouble I was having finding a garage to pull the motor. He said, he had the same trouble, and finally wound up going to a Ford dealership. I'm loath to go to a dealer to have work done on my car, but I need to get it done and that could be the next step.