Front compartment of batteriesRear compartment of batteriesThe PISA Fiero DashThe Charger RecepticalDyno Results for Speed and HP
OwnerWilliam Louis Bohan
LocationDallas, Texas United States map
Web/EmailWebPage email image
Vehicle1984 Pontiac Fiero SE
MotorAdvanced DC FB1-4001A Series Wound DC
DrivetrainOriginal 4 speed trans axle with
electric motor replacing the gas
engine.
ControllerDC Power Systems DCP-600 Raptor
Batteries13 Johnson Controls Unknown, 12.00 Volt, Lead-Acid, AGM
100 Ah each
System Voltage156 Volts
ChargerK and W BC-20
BC-20 is 108 volts and with the LB-20
booster transformer it output up
HeaterProportional Temperature Controlled
Thermistor Grid
DC/DC Converter
Just using a 12 volt AGM motorcycle
battery and a 12 volt smart charger.
InstrumentationA) Speedometer
B) Tachometer
C) Traction Voltage
D) Traction Amp
E) Accessory Volts
F) E-Meter
G) EV Dash
Top Speed90 MPH (144 KPH)
Top speed listed is the top speed on
the speedometer. Using radar on a
closed track by the previous owner the
car has clocked over 112mph. (Batteries
were NOT happy though.) I would say
the usability speed/power is approx 75
MPH. Anything after that speed take
time to achieve.
AccelerationUsing only 2,3 and 4 gear (normal use)
0-60 is about 25 seconds. See the
stats image for all of the
performances. Performance has been
increased with 156 volts but haven't
re-preformed the test.
Range20 Miles (32 Kilometers)
This measurement is only to
50% DOD with the cheap AGM batteries I
threw into the car.
Watt Hours/Mile325 Wh/Mile
This measurement is the wall to wheel
measurement with the K&W charger. From
onboard calculations from meters it shows
from 250 to 275 Whr/Mile.
EV Miles
Start:104,644 Miles (168,372 Kilometers)
Current:155,355 Miles (249,966 Kilometers)
Total:50,711 Miles (81,593 Kilometers)
 
    As of 4/29/2015
Seating Capacity2 adults
Curb Weight3,000 Pounds (1,363 Kilograms)
Currently at stock Fiero weight with the
AGM batteries. But the suspension and
brakes have been upgraded to compensate
for the extra weight of the old batteries.
TiresYokohama LRR tires
Conversion TimePrevious owner took 6 weeks, evenings
and weekends to do the initial
conversion.
Nov 07 : The LED lights I ordered have helped. I don't
hear as much whine in the DC/DC converter. Its actually
almost non-existent now. The replacement flasher didn't
work so for now I have to manually blink the turning
signals. I wish I would have done an amperage check to
see how much of a difference it made switching to LEDs.
I also have a 5 farad capacitor in place of the dead 12
volt battery. I still get power sags when I first take
off, it just isn't as much as before.

Nov 07 : I had one battery go bad. The battery developed
corrosion under the terminal connection and over heated
and melted the terminal while I was driving. So I am
currently driving the car on only 19 batteries. I don't
see any mileage difference with one battery short. But I
still plan on replacing the one bad battery.

Dec 07 : I have the one bad battery replaced and I never
did really see any difference with 1 battery short.
Battery prices have really jumped recently. I paid 125
dollars for a new Trojan T-125. But once I got the new
battery in place, I have driven the car pretty lightly to
break in the new battery. I have been getting over 60
miles regularly.

Jan 08 : I just had the car painted Glossy Black. It now
looks like a new car again. If you are going to get your
car painted be sure to check what they paint. It turned
out that the door jams were extra.

Feb 08 : I just bought a 12 volt AGM battery. I took out
the DC/DC converter and 5 farad capacitor. I also bought
a 12 volt smart charger to charge the new AGM battery.
Since the 12 volt system is now totally separate from the
main pack. Preliminary testing shows about 1 to 2 mile
increase per charge but I am still going to call it 60
MPC.

Apr 08 : I just had the rear brakes totally replaced.
They were starting to scrape the rotors. The calipers
were getting shot and the rotor was worn down past
usability. The brakes have actually been dragging
causing the motor to work harder than needed. At 45 MPH
I have seen amperage drops of 10 to 15 amps. Thats a
HUGE drop! I will start keeping track of mileage for the
month do recalculations of mileage and KW/Mile.

May 08 : I just completed a highway speed test. Before
when the brakes were bad, I had such high amp draw that
its highway mileage was cut in half. Now that the brakes
are fixed, I just averaged 61 MPC averaging 60 MPH. I
was doing 60 MPH and only pull 115 amps in 3rd gear.
Before it was almost 200 amps to do 60 MPH, so a huge
difference on brakes. People check your brakes before
they start making noise!

Jun 08 : I picked up on old PDA and got EVDash installed
on it and have it interfacing with the E-Meter. I am
hoping to log my drives and data and how some comparison
data to see. Another cool feature of the EVDash program
is alerts to let you know when low voltage (from sag) and
high amps occur, so you have some sort of audio indicator
to let you know to pull back some. I have also been
playing around with different driving techniques and also
building a cheap DIY AC system using a cooler and a bilge
pump.

Jul 08 : I was on vacation most of the month but I have
gotten accelerometer data using Dynolicious program using
an Apple iPhone. It it suppose to be pretty close to a
full dyno run but in real world usage. Here is what the
car did:

Acceleration (starting in 2nd gear and WOT after 5
seconds):
0-10 : 1.72 Sec
0-20 : 4.21 Sec
0-30 : 7.34 Sec
0-40 : 12.06 Sec
0-50 : 19.61 Sec
Didn't make it to 60 ran out of road, will do more runs

Elapsed Time :
60' : 3.84 Sec @ 17.7 MPH
330' : 10.21 Sec @ 35.8 MPH
1/8 Mile : 15.64 Sec @ 44.3 MPH
1000' : 20.48 Sec @ 50.8 MPH
1/4 Mile : 24.47 Sec @ 57.2 MPH

Miscellaneous Data :
Max Speed Achieved : 57.4 MPH (got close to 60 but ran
out of road)
Max Acceleration : 0.36 G's
Peak Horse Power : 50 HP (At the wheel HP, not Flywheel
like gas car)
Passengers : 2
Weight Used : 3900 (2 heavy passengers, so compensated
extra for weight)
Temp : 95 Degrees

I've got video of this run, they are post on my website,
next time I will also do the run with my EVDash program
running in the screen shot to see Volts and Amps pulled.
You can also see these videos on my YouTube
WebPage .

Aug 08 : I just got my own digital camera so I will do a
few more videos and post them up on my YouTube site.
Nothing much else going on this month.

Sep 08 : I just finished taking out all of the battery
racks, grinding them down and repainting. I painted the
racks with bed liner spray. I am hoping to cut down on
the corrosion I clean up every month. I also took out
the Battery Watering system to see if that is what is
causing all of the corrosion that I get every month.
While I was cleaning the battery racks, I also took out
the battery heater system. It is not needed in Texas, it
hardly ever gets below 50 degrees and the car is always
in the garage. I also built 15 battery desulfators and
installed them onto the battery pack. I will be
recording voltages over a few months to see if the
batteries start recovering. I am updating my website to
have pictures of the cleanup and before and after pics.

Oct 08 : The desulfators have worked well, the batteries
are taking a better charge. I've even had to adjust the
charger because the batteries are working better. I also
ordered a Zivan NG3 charger. Since the batteries are
responding well, I think a high efficient charger like
the Zivan will keep the batteries alive even longer. It
is getting close to two months and the batteries are
still clean, it was definetly the battery watering system
that was causing the problems. So its been great having
the batteries stay clean.

Nov 08 : I have lowered my miles per charge down to 45
miles (was 60 miles). After my cleanup project and me
messing with the programming of the eMeter, I think it
now better represents how the car is performing on its
almost 7 year old batteries. This month is the 2 month
mark of my desulfators and I am pleasantly surprised, all
but 5 of my batteries have reached the 100% charged
voltage of 6.37 volts. Two of those batteries are at
6.36 volts which is 98% charged, so there is still good
hope for these two batteries to hit 100% charged.
Another two could possibly hit 100% if given enough time
(they are at low to mid 90's%) and I will be watching
that, there is still hope for those two. The last one is
really weak, I don't think it will fully recover, it is
sitting about mid 80's on its percent of charge. All of
the batteries will remain on the desulfators, but I think
that battery is just not going to recover.

Dec 08 : The Desulfators have been on my battery pack for
3 months now. With the batteries being healthier, I have
been turning up my charger's voltage more and more. My
pack now hits full charge voltage. As expected from the
weaker batteries, they haven't recovered any further. It
does look like 1 lb of lead per day on the desulfators.
I just started some aero dynamic changes to the car, I
will probably finish those up in Jan 09. I started using
my heater in the car this month but it hasn't really
heated the car up very well. Will probably look at that
some time to see if there is a problem or just needs to
be upgraded.

Jan 09 : Got a new project for a performance enhancement.
I helped a friend wire up a small bank of capacitors into
a Ranger EV. I did the test driving and thought I could
feel a performance gain. So I decided to build one for my
car but I built a larger capacitor bank. So far I don't
feel a power difference but my mileage is up for my
winter mileage. At the end of the month I also put on a
belly pan on the front half of the car and sealed up the
lower radiator intake. I also put on aluminum foil tape
on my rims to see if I can get further mileage with
smooth rims. I've got two batteries that took a big hit
on their voltage, it was because some water got into my
case for the desulfators (Thats what you get for driving
in the rain.... doh). That water fried the desulfator and
put a short onto the battery, so I need to condition
those two batteries back to health before really getting
good test results. While I was looking for a place to
mount my capacitor bank, I found one of my motor mounts
was broke, so I need to get a permanent fix for that,
right now I put two pipe bands around it to help support
it. Thats just a band-aid fix for now, I'll have to get a
new one welded up or fix the existing one. One final
thing to note for January, I just bought an EV Van. So
some of my attention will be going to that during
February, but I will try to keep up on testing things.

Feb 09 : Those two batteries that got shorted really
aren't recovering at all. One is really bad, it doesn't
get above 6.05 volts after charging. So that battery is
probably just toast, the other is lower than my weakest
battery but not by a lot, so that one is doing ok. But
in the end, both of those batteries will probably have to
be replaced to get my mileage back.

Mar 09 : I switched out the two bad batteries in the pack
with two retired EV batteries from someone elses EV.
They retired the batteries because they were only giving
him a few miles. I didn't see any changes right away,
but after a few weeks, I started to recover my mileage
again. I would like to think the desulfators brought
back those batteries, but in either case, I am back up on
my mileage and put off buying a new pack a while longer.

Apr 09 : I happen to run across a good deal on some Power
Check Equalizers. If you are not familiar with these,
they shuttle power back and fort between two adjacent
batteries. Instead of burning off the extra power during
charging these work full time shuttling power to the
weaker battery making the pack more balanced. I think
having these on a pack when new would make the pack last
long time because they stayed in sync with each other,
but even on a used pack, I am seeing a better balanced
pack. Although expensive, they really do seem to be
helping!

Future : My next project for the car will be a full Belly
Pan (got part of it done now). I need to pick up some
corplast from somewheres to do all of it. Also thought
about shaving off the side mirrors and moving them inside
of the car. Anything to help the aerodynamics will help
the mileage.

Many thanks to North Texas Electric Auto Association (
NTEAA WebPage ) for all the help and tips.

YouTube WebPage

code by jerry