Guest dansandk Posted November 30, 2008 Share Posted November 30, 2008 So I had originally intended on restoring a 1977 280z before making it a simple lead acid battery electric vehicle for an 8 mile commute. An unlikely grant proposal and one year later, the government is providing funding to showcase next generation fuel cell technology under the hood of this car! Its almost embarrassing because I am a fuel cell engineer, but began the project as a mere admirer of the Datsun Z's with no real restoration knowledge. So the pressure is suddenly on to do the entire project extremely well (have sought professional psychiatric as well as mechanical help). While I am building the fuel cell in the lab, friends just gawk at the actual restoration because its being done in our single car garage (its really very scary). $90 in wood to build a rotisserie for the shell and ideal year-round weather are the only things keeping the project going in such a small space. Just like me, the fuel cell will ultimately run on booze (methanol/ethanol - Macallen 18 year should provide optimal performance). With a little help from the government, we hope to ensure that the South's illicit moonshine industry powers America well into the 21st century. Having used the search function on this site heavily, I've become familiar with Joe Porcelli's electric 280z, as well as Project AmpEater 240z. But with this posting I was hoping to probe the ZCar/HybridZ universe for any other Zcar electric conversions that may be out there. It seems like a lot of people have tossed the idea around, but never acted on it. If there are any other fuel cell powered Z's, those would be good to know about too. But I assume that's much more of a long-shot. Rotisserie turns single car garage into rotating obstacle course of death: Modest amount of room left for storing wife's belongings in space where L28 used to be: Fabricated steel box for batteries & capacitors will be welded into the frame in place of the current wheel well (shown in parts Z). Hope to never have to take the bottom of a vehicle down to metal ever again. 9 gauge steel frame rail replacements shown. For you purists out there, and for the record, giving up the L28 was a very, very challenging decision. Still hurts sometimes..but its all in the name of progress. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jmead Posted December 2, 2008 Share Posted December 2, 2008 An unlikely grant proposal and one year later, the government is providing funding to showcase next generation fuel cell technology under the hood of this car! Just like me, the fuel cell will ultimately run on booze (methanol/ethanol - Macallen 18 year should provide optimal performance). With a little help from the government, we hope to ensure that the South's illicit moonshine industry powers America well into the 21st century. I've become familiar with Joe Porcelli's electric 280z, as well as Project AmpEater 240z. But with this posting I was hoping to probe the ZCar/HybridZ universe for any other Zcar electric conversions that may be out there. It seems like a lot of people have tossed the idea around, but never acted on it. If there are any other fuel cell powered Z's, those would be good to know about too. But I assume that's much more of a long-shot. Details! Voltage? What size stack? You mentioned both batteries and capacitors? Will there be a buck/boost or will they be paralleled? Have you selected a motor/controller combo? I always thought a fuel cell would be the ideal "auxiliary power source" for the ampeater....I guess I'll be waiting until they show up on the surplus market. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cockerstar Posted December 4, 2008 Share Posted December 4, 2008 Please keep us updated with lots of pics! It would be great if you could host them here or on photobucket for those of us not on zcar.com. I love seeing the Z with non-traditional power plants in them I can't wait to see how this turns out! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest dansandk Posted December 7, 2008 Share Posted December 7, 2008 The power plant will be a 144volt lead acid gel battery pack, with a pack total of ~1.5kW-h. The fuel cell is more ambiguous. Since we don't make the things on an assembly line, each cell tends to behave a little differently. On the other hand, it will have a wide range of possible kW draw, so without yet being able to state the exact parameters of how the fuel cell will function with batteries in pure EV terms, the amount of meth/ethanol onboard will still determine range. To put it into perspective, in order to attain 150Watt-Hours of energy, you need: 13ml of diesel, 33ml of methanol/ethanol, 95ml of liquid hydrogen, or 600ml of average lead acid battery electrolyte. The average lead acid battery is close to 1 gallon by volume. So 1 gallon of battery is driving Joe's electric 280z about 0.6 miles at 50mph. In contrast, the fuel cell will provide about 21mpg (meth/eth) by itself. The controller will definitely be home made because of the unique power setup. A fuel cell constantly running at low power (even when the car is parked), first charging a capacitor bank for high current acceleration needs, and then the batteries. A Netgain Warp-9 motor attached with clutch to the Z's 4 speed manual transmission is the current plan. I know people have done direct drive setups, but I wasn't comfortable with adding several hundred pounds of permanent weight to the car AND ditching higher gear ratios. It is difficult to be more specific about the power plant at this time until I see how the fuel cell ultimately performs. But something to the above effect.. We finally got a rough project web site up: http://www.electricfireball.com In the meantime, here are those pictures I linked earlier, which everyone should now be able to see. Rotisserie turns single car garage into rotating obstacle course of death: Modest amount of room left for storing wife's belongings in space where L28 used to be: Fabricated steel box for batteries & capacitors will be welded into the frame in place of the current wheel well (shown in parts Z). Hope to never have to take the bottom of a vehicle down to metal ever again. 9 gauge steel frame rail replacements shown. Whenever possible, its always best to build a smaller prototype vehicle first: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gollum Posted January 8, 2009 Share Posted January 8, 2009 Please ignore the lack of postage on this thread, and PLEASE keep us updated. I know there's at least a small handful on this board that are very interested in reading about this project. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ZZZeee Posted January 8, 2009 Share Posted January 8, 2009 I'm just pi$$ed that I can't get some of that freebie gov't money to fund "my" EV project. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Noddle Posted January 8, 2009 Share Posted January 8, 2009 Hi, Have you looked into using 'Vanadium battery' as a storage and or source for your energy ? Nigel Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest dansandk Posted January 9, 2009 Share Posted January 9, 2009 Vanadium systems are pretty easy to build, and inexpensive (though the recharging system would be a different story). Add fine, technical grade vanadium powder to sulfuric acid solution, apply (+) and (-) potentials to the cathode and anode, choose an ionomer for the membrane, and go. The inability to recharge batches of bulk electrolyte as is possible with multi-valent Vanadium is, I believe, much of what is keeping Zinc-Air from really taking off. To make V-Batts competitive, they need better kinetics, faster discharge rates (implies a catalyst, which to my knowledge they don't yet employ in any true sense). They also need better energy density, but because the acid is quickly saturated with V, they are limited to using very low amounts in solution. You could potentially supersaturate the acid solution with more vanadium using a charged surfactant, but that surfactant could spoil the electrolyte and would definitely cross over the membrane between anode and cathode, so it would have to stabilize both higher and lower valancies of Vanadium equally. Interesting about the V-Batt is that when people start talking about how to make them better and more competitive, they start considering aspects of fuel cells. To make all the options directly comparable, the electron efficiency of a lead acid batt is 2.4%. For a V-Batt it is 8.7%. For Lithium ion, 66.7%. For the ethanol fuel cell, 7.7% (without catalyst) to 87% (with perfect catalyst). Pure hydrogen with a perfectly efficient catalyst would be 100%. When you consider kinetics, the V-Batt and the Lead acid are fairly comparable (with only several acceptions). 280z project was put temporarily on hold in the wake of a house fire that required the kitchen to be redone and a new front door and door frame. Loads of fun, really. Can't wait to get back to the garage where the fun tools are. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jmead Posted July 6, 2009 Share Posted July 6, 2009 Any update? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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