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Another City EL driver in California USA - LEMN WEJ

Posted: Sun Feb 17, 2008 8:43 pm
by leavhouse
Hi everyone,
Please allow me to introduce myself. I drive a yellow 1993 City EL VIN 4032 imported in the same batch mentioned in Craig's post http://batteryvehiclesociety.org.uk/for ... .php?t=771

You can see my vehicle's details at http://evalbum.com/586.htm

Please feel free to post (preferred, so we can share) or email me if you have comments, questions. I'll try to make it a point to update with more pictures and descriptions of my current vehicle status.

I'm looking forward to sharing "how I did that" stories with fellow City EL owners!

Thanks!
Scott

Posted: Sun Feb 17, 2008 9:14 pm
by booboo
Just thought I'd say hello 8)

Nikki will be pleased to see another yellow one, she was feeling a bit isolated at the Bristol weekend...all the others were white :P

Posted: Sun Feb 17, 2008 10:41 pm
by aminorjourney
Hi Scott,

Great to see you online!

Yes, all the BEST City Els are yellow eh? It certainly seems to be the colour of the pimped out ones with higher than standard spec! ;)

I would love to see the rear axle work you've done. My belt drive casing has just died (this weekend) and is now rubbing when I move along. I'm considering an upgrade to the duplex chain you can get in Germany, but I know you have a belt drive with different ratios. Tell us more! I'm interested to find out about your speed handling too. My El will just about make 50 with really hot batteries and no headwinds, but 45 is the normal top speed. I'd love to get that magic 50 though as I've just accepted some new work out of town which means I'm going to be driving on 60 mph roads, not 30 mph town streets!

Nikki.

Posted: Mon Feb 18, 2008 12:32 am
by leavhouse
Hi Nikki, Thanks!
I'm glad you started this forum. The mini-el Yahoo group seems to get no useful traffic, just spam, so it's good to be on a list that actually has relevant activity!.

aminorjourney wrote:My El will just about make 50 with really hot batteries and no headwinds, but 45 is the normal top speed. I'd love to get that magic 50 though as I've just accepted some new work out of town which means I'm going to be driving on 60 mph roads, not 30 mph town streets!
Nikki.


I've found 50 to be rather elusive too.
Even with the voltage increase (36v to 48v) and belt ratio change, I don't top 45 anymore, except when headed slightly downhill. Battery voltage is sure to be a contributing factor, as these Lead Acids are not new anymore.

I have the "speed kit" resistor in the shunt field circuit, and plan to leave it in there in case of belt breakage. Without it, I might see a slight increase in top speed.

Scott

Posted: Tue Feb 19, 2008 9:13 am
by aminorjourney
Hi Scott,

A good idea to keep the resistor in place I think. I may be tempted to remove it if I had a chain drive, but the risk of damaging the motor is a bit high.

I can highly recommend Lithiums. They really do change the car's handling, speed and range. I do have some insider information on an attempt by City Com to put lithiums in. Sadly they ignored the advice of a professional in the field of Lithium Ions and therefore screwed it up. Then they claimed the battery tech wasn't ready. Otherwise we'd all have upgrades available commerically I think! (Though I'm trying to do just that at the moment).