Enginer Customer Service

Congrats on your install
Where in NY are you located at?

 

I'm glad to hear that Enginer customer service was good. I didn't have an opportunity to call them but it's nice to know that they respond quickly when you call. I thought the installation was straightforward and fun... until I went to mount the box into the car. Then it became a lot less fun.

I drove around for a couple of weeks with the kit roped down in the car - I used rock climbing gear to essentially tie the box down in the back of the car. This worked fine but didn't seem to be a good long term solution, so this last week I moved on the final phase which was the box installation.

I followed the template that came with the kit. Two of my drilled holes came out on the other side of the heat shield above the exhaust pipe. The other two came out on the other side of brackets and all 4 were very hard to get to from the bottom. I had to remove the exhaust mount, and then the heat shield and then it was straightforward enough for the right two bolts. For the left two, they were block by a large black plastic undercoating, I removed that and then they were blocked by brackets that made it impossible to see the holes from just looking - I had to use a mirror. So then I had to carefully balance the washers/nut on my fingers, and then carefully move the little mini-tower around the bracket, and then my wife turned the bolt while I attempted to get my washer/nut stack to get onto the bolt without being able to see it. It was an exercise in frustration geting it in place but it attached right away when I finally got everything in the right place without it falling apart.

My point in posting isn't to complain but because I never saw this mounting issue documented at Enginer.com (I'll post a thread there too... where they will no doubt tell me that I did it totally wrong and if I'd just done X, Y and Z it would have been easy).

If I had to do it again, I think I'd skip the mounting holes on the sides, and I'd drill through the enginer case into spots that weren't blocked by stuff - closer to the tire well there were empty easy-to-get-to spots that seem like they would work just as well and be a lot easier.

Congrats on your successful install

 

I've done two installations without drilling. You can match up a few of the hard mounted hole/bolt. I used a very simple aluminum plate to gap plate to a couple of the existing threaded nut/bolt in the chassis.

I don't like doing permanent drilling

 

Yeah, I posted my experiences because I saw in your original post that you hadn't mounted it yet. That was by far the least pleasant part of the installation for me and I wanted to prewarn you so that you have a smoother road than I did.

I agree with the idea of drilling through the case - not sure what Enginer thinks of the idea, but from my experience following the obvious plan of using the bolt holes in the case was a mess in a Gen3 2010 Prius.

pbui's suggestion is a good one too... wish I'd thought of that.

 

The physical install is a pain and i suspect a lot of DIYers simply never bother. I also found the bolts on the right side fiddly to do, and the left almost impossible. I used the short bolts and just the brass nut inserts on the left. when i remove the rear undertray i'll try and put the longer bolts through.

 

The load floor would not stop anything going anywhere. The original tools and spare would not be screwed down if it would...

Yes, i'm concerned that in an accident (even a relatively minor one) the case becoming dislodged could allow one of the 230V lines (from the kit, or the car) to short or hit the chassis. Most likely the fuses/breakers would trip and nothing bad would happen, but i prefer it to be secured. in a high speed accident the batteries become 20kg missiles that would easily maim and kill.

It's much safer to bolt it all down, which is what i've done and would reccomend all DIYers to do.

 

I had several reasons to bolt it down. First is that I had the kit bouncing whenever I went over the railroad tracks on my way to work. One time it happened, the kit stopped working and I saw that a connection had come loose but I figured it's a bad idea to have 90 kilos of high voltage stuff go airborn in the back of my car twice daily when I roll over the tracks on my way into work.

Second, I'm a fairly sedate driver - especially now that I'm trying to get 75mpg+ out of my PHEV Prius, but my wife is most definitely not. Barring a major snowstorm my wife tends to drive like she's in a sportscar and there's a tight deadline facing her. She drove the car (my poor Prius) and even with all the ropes and carabiners and my cool looking "trucker's hitch", I could hear the kit sliding back and forth a bit. Again, didn't seem a good idea with batteries and voltage converters - let alone long-term longevity of the kit.

Lastly I was worried about a high-speed collision and I had bad pictures of a lovely airbag curtain surrounding me only to get clobbered from behind by 90 kilos of unsecured batteries.

I definitely recommend bolting the kit down. I just don't recommend particularly doing it the way that I did it. I think if I did it again, I would find spots that the bolts line up well with free spots in the undercarriage and then bolting through there rather than letting the case direct my drill points into spots that happened to be particularly obnoxious to reach.

But I think bolting it down the way that I did was much better than not bolting it down at all. It's an expensive, heavy kit. It should be well secured.