Which motor you choose is up to you. Our own personal
preference is for DC right now, because they can be used in
any vehicle and they are cheaper.
Either will do the job, it just depends on your vehicle choice
and how much you want to spend on the project.
With our first Toyota conversion we used a salvaged 9 inch
DC electric motor and it works fine. We hooked it up to the 5
speed transmission of the vehicle. You don’t have to, but we
kept the flywheel and the clutch.
For the most part the clutch isn’t necessary for normal city
driving, which makes it easier on people who don’t know
how to drive a stick, or are a little rusty.
The car acts like an automatic in that you don’t have to use
your clutch when you stop. The engine just stops running. It
is so nice just sitting there with no noise at all. The road
noise from the tires starts up at about 20 mph.
Don’t worry, you can just choose one gear and stick with it.
For in town we usually drive in second gear, which gives us a
top speed of about 30 mph.
When driving out of town, lots of times we just stay in third
or fourth which let’s us get up to about 50 mph in most
conditions.
We are offering several links here for suppliers of both AC
and DC motors for your convenience.