Greg Sievert's 1993 Volvo 240 GLE Wagon

Owner	Greg Sievert
Location	Williamstown, Victoria Australia ^map
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Vehicle	1993 Volvo 240 GLE Wagon Last of the Volvo 240 wagons. Not as heavy as you might think, and plenty of room for batteries. This one is in great condition inside and out and will make a very clean donor car.
Motor	Warfield WarP 9 Series Wound DC Purchased through ZEVA in Perth, Western Australia. Unfortunately got caught out a bit on the exchange rate fluctuation, but Ian Hooper gave us a good deal because we had ordered it prior to the exchange rate changed dramatically. Thanks Ian!
Drivetrain	Original engine is a B230FX (2.3 litre 4-cylinder with cast-iron block and aluminium head) and Aisin 4-speed automatic. Rear wheel drive (obviously!) Converting to 4-speed manual.
Controller	Cafe Electric Zilla 1K HV On order since August 2008 when the run-out of production was announced. Using the HEPA pedal assembly. Hope to get it by the end of 1st quarter 2009. Yippee! The Zilla arrived in April!! It's a thing of beauty.
Batteries	50 Thunder Sky TS-LFP160AHA, 3.20 Volt, Lithium-Ion Probably 160 volts - not yet decided, but now leaning towards the larger 160AH batteries instead of 90AH
System Voltage	160 Volts
Charger	To be decided
Heater	Minimal requirement as we live in temperate Melbourne, AUS. Window defogger only (12 hair dryers in defog ducts?) No heater required - have seat heaters to install for cool days.
DC/DC Converter	To be decided
Instrumentation	Will use the original speedometer (it's driven off a sensor in the diff) and tachometer (Zolox speed sensor on front of motor with feed to the Hairball). May try to develop a display screen of some sort for the center console area.
Top Speed	70 MPH (112 KPH) Speed limit in Victoria is 110 kph (so no need for anything higher than that)
Acceleration	Similar to or better than base car (would be happy with 0-60 mph in less than 11 seconds)
Range	20 Miles (32 Kilometers) Hoping for around 20 miles + in city driving at speeds of 60 kph (35 MPH) average; may be potential to re-charge at work, but this car is not required to be a daily driver.
Watt Hours/Mile	To be determined later
Seating Capacity	Original = 5 (but the 240 was available with an optional rearward facing child seat to make it 7). Depending on where we put the batteries, we may eliminate the rear seat and make it a 2-seater with large, flat rear load floor. This would also help reduce weight as the rear seat in this car is HEAVY!
Curb Weight	3,000 Pounds (1,363 Kilograms) Base car is around 1400 kg (including power steering, heavy auto transmission, AC, rear seats, etc). I hope to keep the car under 3000 lbs after conversion.
Tires	I was unable to resist the temptation to put some better wheels on the car (17-inch 5-spoke alloys) but will try to restrain myself to a 205 mm width tire. I guess wider tires will have worse rolling resistance. Wheels arrived and (surprise!) they are heavy.
Conversion Time	Car acquired in October 2008. Nov 2009: Engine is out; engine bay cleaned; Working on adapter plate (see new pics) May 2009: Trying to figure out how to join the motor to the manual transmission, so I've been looking at a lot of pics on the web. Time to do a mock-up!
Conversion Cost	Glider cost (after sale of engine and transmission) is about $900. Total cost expected to be around $30k with LiFePO4 batteries. May 2009: Waiting for the Aussie dollar to go up a bit more - better prices for imported parts! Nov 09 - AUS dollar is great now, so parts from USA are reasonable again.
Converting from power steering to manual steering (COMPLETED!); deleting air conditioning and complex heating/ventilation system in favour of a more simple, light-weight solution for window defogging only (no real need for heat or AC); Still thinking about clutch vs. clutchless, but I prefer the idea of clutchless as it is simpler. May 2009: definitely going clutchless! Nov 2009 - still trying to figure out whether to use taper lock or B-Loc bushing to attach motor shaft to trans; custom coupling needs to be machined up to accept clutch centre section. Working on the weight calculations it seems I'll have to put some batteries in the engine bay to avoid a rear-heavy weight distribution (original car is 51% Front/49% Rear which is pretty close to ideal...the conversion with 20 batteries in front and 30 batteries in rear is shaping out more like 47% Front/53% Rear). Would be nice to keep all the batteries in the rear, but distribution would then go closer to 40% Front/60% Rear which seems a bit too light in the front (may compromise handling)

code by jerry