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| Convert It! | 
 enlarge | Author: Michael Brown
Publisher: South Florida Electric Auto Association (S F
Category: Book
Buy New: $24.95
New (2) Used (1) from $24.95
Avg. Customer Rating:  24 reviews
Sales Rank: 7093
Media: Paperback
Edition: 2nd
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 128
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.6
Dimensions (in): 10.8 x 8.3 x 0.3
ISBN: 1879857944
EAN: 9781879857940
ASIN: 1879857944
Publication Date: November 1993
Shipping: Eligible for Super Saver Shipping
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
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Product Description
This book is the leading how-to resource for electric car conversions. It combines Brown's years of professional automotive experience with down-to-earth language even an automotive beginner can understand. It is not written for the engineer in the laboratory, but for the home mechanic building his own car, and for the average person behind the wheel. Brown speaks to the reader as if talking to a friend in his garage. Before lifting a wrench, Brown answers the most frequently asked questions about electric cars: how fast will it go, how far will it go, how long will the batteries last, how pollution-free is it really, and many more. The conversion process itself begins with choosing an appropriate donor chassis, and stripping it of internal combustion components. Here Brown's experience provide numerous tips and tricks to make the later conversion process easier and more successful. Step by step, Brown leads the reader through the conversion. As each component comes up, Brown gives a little background on the different types available, and the pros and cons of each. He includes tips on layout, design and fabrication at each step, and discusses different approaches for different chassis, such as front wheel drive vs. rear wheel drive. By the end of the book, every part of the conversion process has been discussed. Brown wraps up with a procedure for testing and troubleshooting, and guidelines for normal driving, charging, and maintenance. The book is salted heavily throughout with photos and diagrams to illustrate its topics, and it includes a very thorough index. CONVERT IT has been chosen by the Department of Energy and by numerous schools across the country as the textbook for high school electric car conversion projects.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 19 more reviews...
 Convert it is a must before any conversion March 29, 2000
27 out of 29 found this review helpful
Convert it does not make to long process of car conversion a breeze, but it is an excelent resource. The book is full of excelent pictures that bring the informative writing to life. The information in this book can be easily appiled to every car conversion and is of great help.
 A Classic May 6, 2006
23 out of 28 found this review helpful
Having built and developed several electrical vehicles and prototypes, I put this book up there among the classics as a good introduction for anyone interested in building an electrical conversion vehicle. I worked on my first vehicle in 1989 and I wish that I had some of the helpful hints that are provided in this book to asist me along. By the way, ironically, possessing two PhD,s ; one in in Electrical Engineering, I have been struck by lightening twice. The first was when I was working on my first electric/solar vehicle.
If you are going to build an electric vehicle...start with September 24, 2001
21 out of 25 found this review helpful
If you want to build an electric vehicle, start with this reference. Clearlly the writter show that he built this stuffs and give us good proccedures and building hints.
A great grounding in the knowledge of electric car conversion July 19, 2005
20 out of 20 found this review helpful
I have an interest in all environmental solutions, but from a more technical side and I was searching for an economical mode of transport, which could also be an ongoing project for the future months. "Convert It" is a great read and it really shows you the basic rules and tips in both technical detail but in a user friendly layout. I would recommend it as a great starting block and as an essential library piece for any future electric car-converting enthusiast.
An Electric Car Conversion Book-Again August 5, 2004
17 out of 45 found this review helpful
Since the converted Renaults of the late 1960s and the Mechanix Illustrated plans-built cars built on British sports car chassis in the early 1970s, a number of hobbyists and promoters have built electric cars out of regular production cars, with slowly improving but not radically worthwhile results.
Not counting either the cost of one's own time and effort-it is a hobby project, after all-or the charging electricity, electric cars still don't make economic sense when you factor in the battery life cycle costs and the fact that most electric conversions won't go 60 miles at highway speeds-the round trip distance, with a stop at the supermarket, of most commuters-on one charge. Understanding employers who allow employees to charge their batterymobile while at work can help, but that covers only a few-and many of those would quit once the novelty factor wore off.
A hybrid car might make more sense, but the ideology of most of the electro-car crusaders won't have them building or promoting them.
As with the burger grease burning advocates, this makes a suitable hobby project for those so amused and this book does a reasonable job of explaining the process. The actual hardware has changed somewhat-microcontroller based controls are de rigeur today and no one uses surplus turbine starting motor-generators any longer (to the relief of the warjet community,we are sure)-but the physics, and to a first approximation, the operating parameters, have not.
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