New '06!

.8 Miles?.. wow! they barely test drove it!..I guess you finished that for them! :lol:

I just ordered two of them... Edward said they were severly backordered out of Japan, but he should get some more with his Feb order... said would be 2-3 weeks for delivery.

So was it hard to find the right wire? or have you installed yet?

 

I know! Isn't that a hoot? My salesguy called me the minute it hit the lot. They had a different one that they used to do the test driving as far as I could tell.


now, for the bigger news:

IT WORKS!!!!!!!! B) B) B) B) B)

My CT EV install blog:

Total time it took: 45 minutes. Fear factor: 11/10 -- but once I got going, I felt braver and braver. The panels pop off really without too much problem and seem to be made of indestructo-plastic. The bottom glove box pops off completely once it's all the way open and getting that out of the way really helps.

First trouble I ran into was being able to get my hand in position to be able to get the last grey plug out of the bus. I could see it perfectly with all the panels off. I don't have gorilla hands, but it was a trick to get the exact angle to be able to then grasp the plug. I was worried that I'd somehow pull out one of the zillions of wires out of a different plug that totally surround the small area that you need to be working in. It did slip out easily when I got it right, and didn't seem to take any extra pull to get it out.

Then, everything went as expected. Get it out of your head that you'll accidentally snap one of your Prius' native wires in half with the wire taps that come from CT. Needlenosed pliers are perfect for closing these, and indeed they snap closed. Don't worry about the position that you close them in, because the mod itself has a lot of extra wire length.

Now, getting that damn pin into slot 27... clicking the "white bar" out really is weird, as it only actually moves about 1mm (or less!). They recommend putting the wire oriented so that the crimp faces away from the edge of the grey plug, but I couldn't get the pin to slide in as deep as the picture shows it needs to go. I put it all together and started the car, but no EV mode.

So, since there wasn't smoke or fire spitting out of the computer busses, I popped the grey plug back out and tried reseating the orange wire. I still didn't think I got it in there correctly, and trying to use a small jewlers screwdriver as recommended seemed clumsy (like it was hard not to cut into the wire itself!). However, I seemed to get it in there a little farther.

Then, viola! EV mode, baby! So, I put everything back together and thought I'd give it a run. I was able to accelerate like never before, and all battery. It only took me 1 time around the block, though, to get the battery down to 3 bars, driving the way I was.

So, whew, it is done, and I am modified! Resistance is futile!

 

So how far can you take the battery down before the ICE takes over automatically?.... I assume it does since thats the way I understood it would work?

Your instructions sounded abit confusing.. I suppose it will make more sense when I can see the instructions.

I have a nice pdf of the EV install procedure for the factory EV.. but does anyone have one for this particular EV kit?



I bought mine from Sigma.. http://www.sigmaauto.com/jdm/prius/prius0405.php
Is this the same as the one you have... is this considered a coastal tech one?

 

Thanks, I didn't know that... taking them down momentarily for fun won't hurt much, but driving home and leaving the batts dead and letting them sit all night thinking you will charge it up in the morning when you warm up the engine will be harder on them.

I think I will try to end up at home with a bit of a charge.... may be good to coast into home without the EV engaged so you can charge a bit.

 

it's all built in battery protection. I think 3 bars is when EV disengages

sorry...was just meant to be a helpful play-by-play of my experience doing the mod.

I checked out that site (very busy web page!) but could't find the EV kit. I bought mine from www.coastaltech.com and would guess it's not the same as one from Sigma.

 

yea... It was fun to test that..... looks like you could definately lower the seats in the back and make a nice climate controlled tent out of the prius to camp in!

That site was hard for me too..... go back to that site and look only at the left column while at the top of the page,.. now scroll down to "interior". Its the 11th item down for 52.00.

 

AHA! That, what you're looking at, is just the momentary switch that goes into the blank to the left of the brightness control for your dash lights. I can't tell from the Sigma website if it comes with any of the needed wiring. There'll be some behind-the-dash fishing you'll need to do to get the wires to go where they need to, and your car will appear altered more obviously if it needs work.

What I like about the CT mod is that it's really behind-the-scenes and when you pop everything back together, you can't tell it's there. And, it was only $45 B)

 

yea... I'll check to see what it has..... I like the idea of a button...the warranty states that anything that affects the normal system voids the warranty... they would have to be able to prove your mod is linked with the malfunction complaint you come up with when going in for servicing.

 

No button. It uses the cruise control stalk to double as the button. You pull the stalk toward you for more than 2 seconds to engage (cruise control cancel still works).

 

All in all was it hard to install?... I may order... I just checked my order and they said they have no instructions or harness.. only wires and a few clamps and you have to get the instructions off the forums. PLUS the next order is only coming with "one" and I wouldn't be getting that one, so I cancelled my order since he couldn't deliver anyway.

If you recommend this after installing, I may just order two of them.

 

Ah.. this is nothing.... check out the CAN-View threads... those really have me intimidated for the moment!

 

Just wanted to chime in to say I also successfully installed the Coastal EV mod last Saturday. Took about 45 minutes; it was easier than I expected.

Tip: If your hand is small enough to get through the hole for passenger side air vent, this helps a lot when moving wires, installing wire taps and removing/re-installing the gray plug.

Rick S

 

I totally concur about it being easy. The car is made of modular plastic that seems to be relatively unharmable. I used no tools to get the dash apart. The instructions that came with the CT mod were great, lots of pictures, and lots of detail, and all the parts you need.

I wish I had smaller hands...and I do have a strangely large number of scratches on the back of my right hand since the install, but I think I'll live.

 

Well it would be very obvious and simple for use to have a button.. but the more I think about it the stealth of using the resume button sounds nice too.... the dealer could try to be a butt if they wanted otherwise.

It sounds like people have done it on the 06 successfully and people are pleased with the way it works.

Thanks...

 

OK.. you talked me into it.. I ordered two of them to ship by ground.. we will see how long it takes to get here now.

The shipping was rather up in the air as the price and they never really told me what it will cost?.. also they don't tell you when they ship "although they don't charge till they ship either, which is good".

So much for a tracking #, or invoice #, or order #, and knowing when it ships and when you get it?.. But it sounds like you guys did ok.

At least they do have a phone #.

________________________________

I got ahold of them by phone.. my order should go out today and they are closed the rest of the week... so just in time!...

They did say that although they don't give an email or confirmation that they got the order, they do give an email confirmation when the order ships with a ups tracking #.... sounds good to me.

Thanks guys for all your input.

 

I got an email directly from UPS as soon as they generated a shipping invoice, which was cool because I could track the package. It's a very small item! They charged me like $12-15 to ship UPS 2 day express to Portland, OR.

 

It appeared every seperate item you picked had the poteintial of getting a seperate shipping charge.... its not really spelled out if they will package it all together.
Thats one thing that kept me from ordering other items.

 

Yea.. I can just see rolling in with battery problems and they would definatley try and get out of several grand worth of work by saying you toasted your battery with a non approved EV toy!

There is wisdom in not being obvious sometimes!