The work has begun.

This blog will attempt to document the conversion of my 2002 Miata to an Electric Car.

I purchased this Miata in 2010 for the sole purpose of converting it to an Electric Car.  It has been to EVCCON 2011 and 2012 and has been a fun car, almost too fun.  I'm using a Netgain Warp9 coupled with a Evnetics Soliton 1 controller in this conversion.  I will be using between 48 and 54 CALB CA180FI LiFePo4 cells.  The only major component not yet purchased is the Netgain Controls PulsaR Power Distribution Unit / Charger / DC-DC convert since it is not yet available.

On Saturday 10/27/2012 I removed the engine with the help of some family members.  I spent a couple days prior to this doing prep work such as removing the exhaust system, radiator and disconnecting everything from the engine.  The engine pull went without any issues and was much easier than I expected.  The Mazda engineers did a great job with the design of these cars and with a reasonable set of tools, they are very easy to work on.  I'd like to thank Stevan Boyd of Miata Solutions in Justin TX for loaning me his engine lift.  I worked out a deal with Stevan to purchase the old engine which only has about 70,000 miles on it.  He also was throwing in a manual steering rack with it, but unfortunately he only had manual racks for the NA version of the Miata and mine is an NB.  So, I now have a new manual rack on order to replace the power steering.  This should simplify the conversion.

The following weekend came the removal of the gas tank and all gas related items.  The removal of the gas tank requires dropping the entire rear end assembly off the car.  This sounds much harder than it really is.  There are only 6 nuts/bolts that have to be removed in addition to other gas related items that are permanently removed.

Last Wednesday, I successfully installed the Warp9 where the ICE used to be.  I used a motor mount from EV Propulsion and the motor to transmission adapter from Rebirth Auto.  The Rebirth adapter is a nice piece of work, however, I have had some challenges to work with.  First, after the engine came out of the car, I checked the stock fly wheel bolts and found that they didn't match the treads on the adapter.  I contacted Rebirth to find out what size these were so I could get the proper bolts and they asked me to return it so they could send me one with the correctly tapped bolt holes.  This was good and when they returned it, they also sent a set of Mazda fly wheel bolts complete with thread lock already on them.  The next problem was that the factory bolts are slightly too long and required a washer to be added.  No big deal.  Next, the stock bell housing bolts didn't match what the adapter was drilled and tapped for and were also too long to fit the new adaptor.  In addition, the bolt holes where the starter used to be where tapped larger than they were supposed to be (these 3 holes are smaller than the rest).  So, I had to order new bolts that were both shorter and had the correct threads for the bolt holes.  Now, some of this could be that the adapter is officially for the NA series Miata and I have the newer NB.  Either way, all is good now and the motor is in.

Next up is to build battery boxes in the trunk area, former gas tank area and up front.  Unfortunately, the easy stuff is done now and I'm more into the fabrication work that is not my strength.  Taking it slow and one thing at a time should produce good results though.