2: Budget

Here is a subject that nobody wants to talk about, but the reality is that if you don't have a budget to get the car legally on the road as a first objective then it is highly likely that it will never get there.

I set a ball park figure of around $13000 or £8000. This is based on my experience. You may think this sounds like a lot to find at the start, but you can start with about half of that and build up your finances while you have the conversion going on. This is like a minimum, and is based on converting a car to be about the same as it was before the conversion and for general use on local journeys up to about 40 miles. Any of these factors can be improved upon, but then you will need even more money.

Generally the cheapest and easiest conversion is to have a DC motor with Lead Acid Batteries through the standard gearbox, flywheel and clutch. This would have a basic motor controller, a basic DC-DC converter, cheap chargers etc. Some parts you just can't get cheap unless you know the right people or get second-hand, but this can sometimes cause more problems than it solves. If you have the patience, then you can make some of the sophisticated parts yourself. I have seen kits for building your own motor controller for example. Throughout this blog I am not planning on discussing how to build the parts at this point in time, but may get round to as I take on more things like this in future.

Generally the things you are going to need to buy consist of the following:

• Car
• Motor
• Motor controller
• Battery pack
• 12v battery mains charger
• Battery pack mains charger
• DC-DC converter

As you will be removing the internal combustion engine you will be taking with it some power sources that you will need to add to run an electric car. Here is a list of other parts you will need to add to keep your car driving like it was before:

• Vacuum pump for the brake booster
• Hydraulic pump for the power steering
• Pump for AC if you want it.

As well as these essentials you will also needs lots of other smaller parts:

• Cable, and loads of it
• Lugs for connecting the batteries
• Switches, relays and contactors
• Tape and heat shrink sleeving
• Metal for making structures to support everything and wood to make models.

So there is the first blog and some ideas about what you will be spending your money on.

In future blogs I will examine each of the items here to help you make the right decisions for your conversion to get what you expect from it. When you have your converting head on and have built up some money, then you can start. It is worth having a stock of major parts before you start taking the engine out of your car as you will need to figure out how you are going to fit it all in the car. If you lose your momentum for lack of parts, then the conversion will take a very long time. I fell quite ill while doing my own conversion with a real bad dose of flu and I was itching to get back on with my car but couldn't do much for a while. We had a bout of bad weather that stopped work until I worked out a cover for my work space. Another period of time I was having some parts made to mount and connect the motor to the gearbox and this process took about 3 months, but if I had the parts it would have been done in one week. I had to kick myself back into action, but as I got closer to putting my car on the road the excitement mounted and my work effort went up again as I was setting myself deadlines.

My best advice is that if you are getting wound up or angry with your build then walk away and do something else for a few hours, or leave till the next day. When you return to the task you will see things differently. You are going to spend a lot of money on this project, so don't settle for a crap job. If something needs putting right then do just that.