Surgery begins

This weekend marked the beginning of my journey towards creating compartments for the batteries in the rear of the car. I prepped the hatch area with plastic lining to limit the amount of dust/debris cleanup I'd have to deal with later. I also put up plastic to separate the front cabin area from where I was working.

Next, I began to remove the weatherproof sealant that frames the spare tire well so that I could get a clear view of the sheet metal seam I was using as my guide for cutting. Here you can see I've already completed cutting the length of one side.

In this closer view, you can see daylight through the cut:

At the end of the day, I stopped with less than half of the job done, but I learned a lot about cutting the body work, took it slow, and now feel confident about removing more material. It's slow going, but I keep moving forward.

Parts keep arriving

I picked up a Kilovac LEV200 contactor to be used as my main contactor. It is rated at 300V and 500A continuous. After speaking with someone at EV Source, it seemed like a good fit for my application. It's a nice little unit:

In the same shipment, I received a speed sensor for my Warp 9 motor. It's made by RechargeCar Inc. and is a really nicely packaged kit. This is also designed to work well with the Zilla controller so that it can monitor the motor RPMs and trigger various safety features.

Below is the EV Source Zilla liquid cooling kit. It comes with a coolant reservoir, a pump, some clear tubing, 2 fans and a radiator. The quality of the components seems very good and I'm looking forward to hooking it up to the controller.

More parts to come.

Drivetrain upgrades

I just received my ultra-lightweight flywheel from CCI (Competition Clutch) and it's a really nice looking part. The stock flywheel in the Yaris weighs a little more than 15 lbs whereas this one weighs 8.64 lbs. It's a 1-piece design, made from forged steel, and moderately skeletonized.

I also received my new clutch. It's a ClutchMasters Stage III clutch that will allow the car to handle a substantial increase in torque that the Zilla/Warp 9 combination is sure to dish out. I figured it would be easier to get these parts in the car now rather than later since I can still tear down the drivetrain with relative ease.

Many thanks to Garm over at www.microimageonline.com for hooking me up with these, they stock an impressive array of performance parts for the Toyota Yaris and Garm was really helpful and supportive of my project. More parts are on the way and should be arriving this week. Stay tuned.