I mentioned before that I was going to bring the adapter plate to a local machine shop to have it cut and drilled to match the bell housing of the Tercel’s transmission. I’ve instead decided to do this myself. I won’t be able to cut the adapter plate to match the bell housing, but I will drill the holes myself. I’m doing this for two reasons: it’ll save me time and money.

I will also NOT be buying the Trojan T-105’s that I mentioned. I am going with a completely different battery setup. I am going to get 6 – 12volt deep cycle batteries. This is going to be much cheaper than 12 – 6volt Trojans, however it will also give me less range than I had calculated before. Firefly Energy just built their new plant and they plan on being full production by next spring. These batteries will make this a completely different car. They have 4x the capacity of current high quality lead acid batteries, they weigh about half of current cells, and their cost will be on par with what a good lead acid costs now. The Firefly battery (the Oasis) uses a lead-carbon foam instead of traditional lead plates. This is what gives them “super-battery” like properties. So hopefully I will be able to get my hands on some of those next summer – if that’s the case I don’t want to spend a fortune now if I’ll just be replacing them in 9 months.