Installed gauges (Part 1)

Got the gauges into the instrument cluster today. It's not as easy as it looks - took a lot of cutting a little careful grinding to get the new gauges to fit (as the black plastic scraps in the picture attest). The stock gauges were about an inch and three quarters (probably metric, though) and these are two inch, so there the holes needed to be re-sized. I used a Dremel, and would highly recommend using one if you attempt something like this. The new gauges stick out a bit - looks kind of like a Toyota Matrix's instrument panel now. The clear plastic panel that covers the dash no longer fits, though. I'm either going to have to modify it to stick out in the bottom to clear the lower gauges or get a half circle piece from TAP plastics and mount it behind the new gauges. Some chrome trim rings would look good on the new gauges too... I'll have to check if Westberg makes 'em. Speaking of Westberg, still have to send back my State-of-Charge gauge. It's only in the picture for show. I'll post an update with the final version of the dash.

EVMiata on KFOG Radio

A friend of mine works at a local radio station, KFOG, and came by to do a short piece on my Miata project and my neighbor's veggie oil burning Mercedes diesel. It's short, but I think it gets the message across that regular people can do something rather than wait for the auto makers to build alternative fuel vehicles. It's due to broadcast for a week, but you can listen to it on KFOG.com at the link below:

Fog files gas free.mp3

A longer version of the interviews is found in a "The Beat of the Bay" show on people having "Ah Ha!" experiences:

Beat of the Bay Ah Ha.mp3

Radio interview and cowl rack is done

A friend of mine works at a local radio station (KFOG) and came by to do a short piece on my Miata project and my neighbor's veggie oil burning Mercedes diesel. He said he's send an MP3 of the final piece and let me know when it airs. Hopefully I won't sound like a total goof.

After the interview I was able to squeeze in a few hours of welding and got the cowl rack finished. I can't mount it until I do the motor mounts, though, so it's just laying there on top of the motor in the picture. Cowl rack is probably a poor name as it really isn't as close to the cowl as I had envisioned it... I'll have to come up with a better name, but for now, *it* is done.

Got the gauges in

State of Charge, Ammeter and Temperature gauge (for the Zilla) all came in. The State of charge was supposed to be 170 volts at 100% and 158 at 0% (this will only show the top 50% of charge, but that's all that's really usable).

The gauge they sent was 158 volt to 178 volt.

It needs to go back : ( Oh well.
Nice looking gauges though and not too deep - ought to fit in the stock instrument cluster without too much work.

Zilla cooling and other parts in - but no Zilla :(

Got a box today from EV Source with the cooling kit, Zolox, potbox and a HUGE fuse for the Zilla. I wasn't expecting to see the Zilla yet, but getting it early would have been nice...

Got the Web site up!

I've been getting a lot of people asking for info on the project and decided to concentrate on getting the Web site going. After some false starts, I finally figured out how to get around the errors I was getting. Though it's not the best site I ever saw, it's good enough to get the job done. I'll put some more info on it later.