Dan Matthews and his crew at Capital City Customs, Inc. are working with us on the re-engineering, disassembly, and building of the Enertia E-vanti car. Dan raced with NASCAR. These are just some of his trophies. Today Dan's crew restores Airstream trailers, tractors, and now, Avantis.
The chassis has been disassembled and the frame was powder coated. The chassis is being reconfigured and reassembled. The batteries will be at the back, and special supports for them are built into the rear of the chassis.
When the chassis/body fit needs to be checked, it is easy to roll the chassis into place and lower the body onto it. Dan and Mike are discussing the plan for cooling the engine and motor. One advantage of the Avanti is that there is plenty of space under the hood for an air cooling system.
Skip ahead three weeks, and more progress has been made. The electronics are installed, except for the controllers which are backordered, the battery box has been designed, fabricated and installed, and the interior is well under way.
Project One was to build a device to lift the body from the chassis, using the special bolt holes provided by Avanti for just this purpose. Once the special sling was built, it was easy to separate the two components and to refit them experimentally as needed.
A temporary generator switch (left) is used for testing the generator. The controller will be mounted on the aluminum platform on the right.
Some creative engineering and fabrication were needed to create a place for the batteries while leaving at least 10 cu.ft. of cargo space in the "trunk."
The body is above the chassis, but not resting in place yet. We put one of the hub caps on to see how they will look.
Our goal is to maintain the body design and style of the Avanti. The interior is being redone in the original color of this car. The instrumentation is updated, but the detailing is original or matching the original. Because this car will be a race car, some special safety features are in place, such as the Dynamat on the floor.
Work on detailing will continue as we wait for the back-ordered electrical controller system to arrive. More updates to follow.....
Avanti to E-vanti Transition
Progress in Pictures
And
Video
VIDEO Tour of the E-vanti