The stock 5HP motor will do 30 MPH pretty good and I don’t know if you really want to go much faster than that in a 2002. Have you put front disc brakes on it? Fully loaded going downhill you’ll have a tough time stopping going 25 MPH with those stock drum brakes…
If you know for a fact your existing batteries are in good shape and still you can’t go over 23 MPH then search the forum for adding an extra battery. The extra voltage should help but again, going fast comes with issues which will bite you if you don’t watch out.
My Trojan battery’s are brand new. Maybe 1/4 mile on them. Disc brakes are on the way. I don’t mind adding another battery I would have went lithium but I wasn’t willing to wait. I hoping the motor will help. It’s not the best when people ride your a$$ and continuously use the horn. So as long as I can get to 40that will be all I need.
Yes no one had them locally and I had not yet found this forum. I was going to sell it because I never really used it. Then I got to messing with it. And as my wife would say it’s all down hill from there.
40 in an 00-04 GEM is really dangerous. I’ve done it. Almost flipped it in the process. The suspension design on the 00-04 is archaic and, well, just sucks.
My son recently flipped a 2001 e825 two seater when he tried to stop suddenly going about 30 with two adults aboard. Light weight makes it skid rather than stop. I would be very wary of exceeding 30 mph
When these batteries die I’ll switch to lithium. I do have an extra battery that I’ve picked up, but I’m unsure where to add it. Does anyone have any suggestions. Thanks for the intel about flipping. I do live in southwest Florida so there are no hills or winding roads. I actually live on an island where most of the speed limit is 30-35 and the max is 35mph so I’d like to get to that point I do run 14” wheels on 205-40/r14
There are two ways to wire it in. If you wire it as part of the main pack, you will need to get a voltage shunt from @Inwo for the harness and to charge the original 6 and the +1, you’ll have to disconnect the 7th battery connect the battery cables back to each other to complete the circuit for the on board charger.
Or. You can put #7 after the main contactor rather than part of the original pack. In that instance, it won’t be seen by the harness so the controller won’t try to error and shut down on over voltage so no shunt needed and because the contractor is open during charging, the original pack of 6 is isolated as #7. So no battery cables to mess with. Just turn on a 12v charger connected to #7.
Here’s a thread on the latter method that Dave and I tested out a few years ago. I ran that setup for a year or more before I snapped the end off a half shaft and parked that cart for the final time.
