Insurance, Inspection, Registration

I am trying to get the car registered so I can legally drive on the road around my town to test it out some more before I attempt a longer trip. It is challenging figuring out the process, so I am posting what I know so far. I will update this post in the future as things progress. btw, AAA is my friend. I don't have to deal with DMV at all.

1. In California, the car must be insured with liability coverage to drive on the road -  My insurance company won't insure it until it passes inspection and is registered. But, in order to pass inspection, by law, I must be able to drive the vehicle there. So, I have aquired a one year liability insurance policy on the vehicle through AAA. I probably could have shopped around and gotten a lower price or shorter term somewhere else, but it was convenient, fast and they were very helpful.

2. Temporary moving permit - I have aquired two 1 day temporary moving permits from the DMV services at AAA. The permits are free. You cannot park on the street with them though. Only for moving the vehicle. The first I will use to take the car to Pep Boys and have the larger, stiffer rear springs installed and possibly the larger front disc brakes. This will help me feel more comfortable about taking the 9 mile drive to the inspection since the current rear springs allow the rear wheels to rub on the inside of the wheel well when I hit any kind of bump at all. The larger front brakes should give me some better stopping power which is nice since I have not installed the vacuum power brake kit yet. Thankfully, the car only weighs about 2100 lbs and is not too hard to stop with manual brakes at low speeds.

3. BAR Referee Inspection - Since my car has had an "engine swap," the Bureau of Automotive Repair must inspect the car and then they give it a sticker which allows it to bypass smog inspection. The website for info and locations of BAR referees is asktheref.org. I will use my second 1 day temporary moving permit to drive to Rio Hondo College and have the car inspected.

4. Register the vehicle - Once the inspection is passed, I can then go back to AAA and pay the registration fees to get my new sticker.

That's it. ERX will be road worthy in just a  few weeks. My plan is to get the springs and brakes upgraded on 11/18, and then get the inspection on 11/25 or 11/26.

This last weekend I did some minor work on the car. I made some adjustments to my charger to make sure it was turning off at the right time and not overcharging any cells. A couple went up to 3.75, so I lowered the cutoff voltage a bit. I also purchased a large resistor to drain the cells that were high just a bit. A few cells were a little low, so I will probably stick the single cell charger on them for a little longer. Eventually I will bottom balance the pack, but a pseudo-top balance is fine for now, as long as the charger shuts off properly. The couple times I ran it at lower cutoff voltages, it did turn off at about the right voltage, so I am happy about that. Currently, I have it set for 43 cells even though I have 44 in my pack, so it goes into Constant Voltage phase at 154.8 volts instead of 158.4 volts. This works out to about 3.52 per cell on average. The CV phase is fairly short since my charger only delivers 10 amps during the Constant Current phase and it turns off when it get down to about 3 amps in the CV phase.

I also washed the car and vacuumed the inside. That took some time. It has been a while since I have hand washed a car, and especially one that hadn't been washed in quite some time. There are still some spots that could use a little more attention.