OK, I wanted to get back to the installation, since the last half of this thread has been troubleshooting my BMS, and my 12v system.
I indeed had fried my BMS by placing the disconnect between the two batteries. But by the time I figured this out, I had a bunch of travel I had to do for work, and then I lost interest for a few weeks once I was back. In the meantime, I still wanted to use the car, so I hooked up an old cell phone wall wart trickle charger to bring cell 13 back in line with the rest of the cells. It took a few hours, but worked great. I put a fan on the charger to keep it under 100*
I also had to enable the DQ charger so it would work without the BMS. Per Daves instructions above I jumpered pin 1 to pin 2 on the DQ charger pigtail.
I mounted my shunt using some Anti static UHMW bar stock from McMaster Carr. I used the same UHMW material to make my new battery hold down. I used some cut down 2x4’s to wedge the battery packs into my under seat battery trays.
Getting my BMS repaired was super easy. I just sent it to Dave, and he fixed it for a reasonable price VERY quickly. I contacted the manufacturer in china, and while friendly, they weren’t able to help me directly, and just told me to have Dave do it. Once I got the BMS back, I changed my wiring so the disconnect was on the B+ side, and not in between the two batteries. My batteries are now hooked up like this:
I ended up putting two lead acid batteries up front to help with ride comfort, but man did this thing turn easy without them, so I will likely want to do something about suspension at some point. Even with the extra ballast up front, and normal cargo weight (me, 2 dogs, and a bed full of tools and gear), this thing is FAST. I’ve started keeping it in turf mode so that I’m not peeling out everywhere. I can accelerate up my steep hills no problem.
I still need to mount my BMS display. I had previously run some wire with RJ11 jacks on each end so I could put my display on my dash, but realized it actually uses RJ9 jacks. After that I will consider the lithium install a completed success.