Building A Leaf

[Duncan]

OK now the serious mods have started.....straight from the Nissan jp factory accessories....

Surely LEDs add kw?

[XRATED]

Nooooo................. Led's are going to cost you .0007 of a km per charge!

[MBS206]

Those last 70 cms could be the difference between being able to close the garage door or not...

[Duncan]

lol, lucky it is downhill from the street to the garage

[Victory]

I saw those on ebay (they come in other colours as well) and I was wondering who would be the first one in the Skyline community to have one on there car - I should have guessed it would be Duncan

[Duncan]

ebay where? I got the damn thing from Nissan jp, it's a genuine leaf part!

[Victory]

They also came in red but I thought being a coloured light on the front of a vehicle they would be illegal so I did not buy them - they look cool though

[XKLABA]

very interesting, electric blue CE28s

are we going to see some neons under this Duncan

the lithium battery I brought for my 34 will full charge in 6mins and weighs 1.1kg, but was a exy

[Duncan]

haha that is pretty bright. maybe fluro orange te37s?

on a more serious topic, we got our hands on these the other week and installed them over the weekend. Blitz ZZR setup

Hopefully none of this was important....can't read a word

The install was easy (and damn, how much cleaner is an electric car with 3,000klm compared to a ute with 500,000klm!).

Excellent improvements, it's gone from a soft and rolly hatchback to reasonably acceptable handling.

[Chris Rogers]

Did it affect the range at all? I figure fiddling with one aspect on this car changes something else on it.

[Duncan]

Interesting question mate...and over time I should be able to answer it. The carwings setup records each journey and average economy, so I should be able to compare pre and post suspension change once there is a decent amount of average data

This setup is 30% lighter (and you would normally count half the suspension as "unsprung") and 30mm lower which would both normally help economy.

But the interesting thing is, pretty much everyone is interested in the range and impact on range of doing things to this car. If you take a step back, who here has ever thought twice about fuel economy before changing shocks? or an airbox, exhaust, cooler etc etc. To me the car can be improved for my preferences by modifying it instead of sticking with the factory compromises. If I have lost 1-2klm (1%) of range from any given change it is kind of irrelevant. I am more concerned about when I change the tyres from eco to grippy ones, that could have a 5 or maybe even 10% impact.

I suspect I will get less range now because it is much more fun to drive fast

[Victory]

What is this thing called fuel consumption????????

If you drive a performance car fuel consumption is the last thing on your mind.

[Kinks]

What is this thing called fuel consumption????????

If you drive a performance car fuel consumption is the last thing on your mind.

Not necessarily.

I see cars all the time that just have a "full power tune" where the tuner has just kept hitting the 'up' button until it was running 10:1, and then passed it off as a "safe" tune. My fuel gauge goes up when I follow those cars because they spew out so much unburnt fuel (ok, slight exaggeration).

While it's absolutely unavoidable that you have to burn fuel to make power, and a more powerful car will drink more when you are up it, there's no reason why you should be wasting fuel willy nilly, unless you're really pushing extremes in which case it's barely a road car any more.

[Daleo]

I would like to see pics of lowered car please?

To satisfy this need in the meantime; I'll leave this pic instead.



Leaf on the deck.

[Duncan]

sorry. turns out today was mother's day, not dropping leaf day

[Duncan]

Nothing to do with my car....but this is an interesting idea: http://smh.drive.com.au/motor-news/formula-ones-electric-rival-20130516-2jp0h.html

[JZP]

Nothing to do with my car....but this is an interesting idea: http://smh.drive.com.au/motor-news/formula-ones-electric-rival-20130516-2jp0h.html

Very interesting. Watching the EV industry to see what after market industry springs up. I expect adoption of EV to happen very quickly for suburban commuting, as the dumbing down of drivers continues.

I like where you're going with your build. Keen to see where it takes you.

[Duncan]

before and after, 30mm lower

needs rims

[fatz]

Needs more r31

[BOZ22N]

Does this car go as fast backwards as it does forwards?