1971 Corvette EV Conversion

[TheSGC]

How's the Corvette coming?

[adamj12b]

Its coming........

Not as good as I would like, but coming along. I have gotten some more work done of the frame, I have gotten the transmission all cleaned up and the bell housing painted. I was also able to fix the clutch linkage and the through out bearing lever.

Most of the work thats been done on the car so far is circuit design for the onboard systems and motor controller work.

I have been working on a new controller based on 600V 400A IGBT's. I am also now planing on upping the voltage to about 288 and i am now going with a warp 11HV instead of the regular 11. The only think I don't like about this is I have to use 90 - 100Ah cells instead of 45 - 200Ah cells. I am worried that i will overdraw the batteries 3C limit....

The biggest reason no work has happened is money. Nobody wants to buy the car parts I have for sale. There is about $4500 worth....Enough for the motor and to start on the batteries.

-Adam

[TheSGC]

Are you rebuilding your transmission and drive axles to handle the Warp11 HV? Another EVer with a BMW stripped his transmission and broke the drive shaft the first time he tried 1,000 AMPs! And according to him, it was 1/4 the power it was capable of doing, so he went to the drawing board for a custom drive train.

The Warp11 HV looks like a sweet piece of hardware! It would never fit in my Civic engine bay, heck my ADC 9" barely fits.

I don't have any real expenses left on my EV, I just need to install the new suspension in the front and install my water heater setup, which may get done this weekend.

[adamj12b]

The transmission I have is a Muncie 20. This transmission is easily capable of 400HP!! I dont expect to be breaking it and if it does I will be very surprised.

-Adam

[adamj12b]

Well Its been way too long...

I have been on vacation for half the month and during that was a trip to Carlisle PA for the yearly Corvettes at Carlisle car show. Over 4000 corvettes on show. This gave us the much needed motivation to finish the car.

So yesterday we cleaned the garage around the car and wheeled the frame out into the driveway. We then started stripping everything off the car. All suspension, control arms, driveline, brakes, brake lines. Everything.

We then began repair on the frame. Before we got the car, somebody had fixed the car from after a bad accident. The car got hit in the divers side as best we can tell. But, when they put it back together by welding a new front end on, they made the drivers side frame rail almost 1/4" too short. This is the reason the body never fit right. So were fixing it.

We cut out the section of the frame that was all dented and marked with weld from when they tried to straighten it. We will then cut the frame and add a small filler piece of metal to lengthen it. We are also able to buy a replacement piece of the frame for welding on where we cut.

Well Here is a link to the pictures. Newest at the bottom.

Included in the pictures are some of the new lower control arms we have for the front. These are tube steel welded together. They are much lighter then stock. Other good thing is they are also used to replace the stock springs with a light weight fiberglass leaf spring. This should shave another 20-30 lbs from the front of the car.

1971 Vette - a set on Flickr

And a time lapse video and a walkthrough.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VZ7n7MTTVS8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7fenUKWEVaw

-Adam

[adamj12b]

Well its been awhile since I was able to get anything done on the vette. But, Now things are flying.

Back in june, I was able to get a deal on the motor. Picked up a brand new Warp11HV for $2500 + 288 for shipping! This is what really jump started the progress.

The motor got delivered June 24. I had it shipped to my fathers work because I could save $130 because its a business. He brought it by my father-in-laws where were working on the car that evening.


Untitled by AdamBrunette, on Flickr


Untitled by AdamBrunette, on Flickr


Warp11HV by AdamBrunette, on Flickr

Well after opening it up, we had to play with it. I used my JTM Power S40 lithium jump starter that does 12 and 24V to spin the motor.

‪EVVette Warp11HV First Power Up‬‏ - YouTube


Other then that, We have mostly been working on restoring the car. we have mounted the body on a dolly to be able to wheel it around and the frame is going to the repair shop tomorrow.


Untitled by AdamBrunette, on Flickr

We found out that it is bent in 2 different directions in the rear. It will be about $300 to have it professionally straightened. Once it gets back, we will sand blast and paint it and install all the new suspension.

I also dropped the stuff off to my friend to make the coupler. my lathe is currently not working. It will consist of a 2012 Taper-lock bushing and a hub made from a 13 tooth 100 size sprocket. The spacer part is made from 6061 aluminum. A pilot bushing will be pressed into the center of the spacer for alignment of the transmission.


Untitled by AdamBrunette, on Flickr

Also, while talking about the transmission, We took it apart and changed the input shaft on it from a 10 tooth to the 26 tooth. This is much stronger as the load is distributed over 26 surfaces instead of 10. Heres a shot of inside a 4 speed Muncie M20.


Untitled by AdamBrunette, on Flickr

The aluminum adapter plate has also been ordered and should be here this week or early next week. it is a piece of 2.5" thick 15.5" x 17/5" 7050-T7 aerospace grade aluminum. I will be machining it on a bridgeport to locate the center bore and dowel pin holes and some rough contouring. When im done, I will put it on a Matsuura CNC mill to contour the visible side and cut some pockets in the back to remove weight. I will start with 69 pounds of aluminum and end up with 19.

Last weekend I did a bit of mocking up of the bell housing using some plywood. I machined the 4" center bore and some of the motor bolt holes. I also cut in the dowel pin holes and some holes that line up with the bell housing bolt holes. I then bolted it together to check the run-out of the bell housing.


Untitled by AdamBrunette, on Flickr


Untitled by AdamBrunette, on Flickr

What I found is the 40 year old bell housings weren't made to very high standards. The locating hole isnt even round!! it's oval. well I tried another housing and it was a bit better. It was perfectly aligned top to bottom, but was pushed to the left by 0.033" I can get some offset dowel pins that will shift it 0.014" which would put it right in alignment.

A few other things ive been working on is removing the fan inside the motor, which turns out to be alot more of a project then one would ever think. I had to use 2 different pullers, 1 to remove the bearing and one to remove the fan. But the fan didn't come peacefully. It shattered when I tried to pull it. So I ended up having to drill a relief hole in the base of the fan and crack it using a chisel. Well before and after:


Untitled by AdamBrunette, on Flickr


Untitled by AdamBrunette, on Flickr

Another small project Ive been working on is the in dash computer system. Ive purchased a 7" touch screen monitor anf have been working on the software. I plan to run a linux system with web based pages. These will run in full screen so you cant tell its inside a browser, but will allow for easy modification.

Heres a pic of the monitor with gauges and a pic of the BMS screen.


Untitled by AdamBrunette, on Flickr


Untitled by AdamBrunette, on Flickr

The BMS screen is actually being displayed on my iPhone but you can check out it out by visiting this link: Battery Management


Well I will be better about updating from this point on now that progress is happening.

-Adam

[Daox]

Why did you remove the fan?

[adamj12b]

Originally Posted by Daox

Why did you remove the fan?

Forgot that part.

the fan was removed from the motor for 2 reasons. One, to gain a few extra horse power, and 2, because after talking to George at Netgain, he told me that they can explode over 5000 RPM. Since the motor in theory can handle 9000RPM it could turn out bad.

I plan to use an external blower to cool the motor, especially since the internal fan doesn't help much at low RPM.

-Adam

[adamj12b]

Well I havnt been updating this thread as much as I had hoped, mainly because Ive been so busy working on the car!

Progress has been immense!

Starting where I left off last time:

About a week after I dropped the stuff off for the coupler, It was complete.

Assembled with lose joining bolts:

Untitled by AdamBrunette, on Flickr

Mating Surfaces(ignore crack in taper bushing):

Untitled by AdamBrunette, on Flickr


I got the frame back from the body shop about a week after I dropped it off. I ended up being quite messed up. Not to mention, every time he made a pull on the frame, another weld would let go. All said and done, It ended up costing me $422.20 to strighten the frame to within 1/16" of original specs. This is pretty good when you read the spec sheets and door gap tolerances are +/- 0.125" I got the frame back the 1st week of August and left on vacation the second and fourth week, So not much work got done in August.

During the second week of my vacation, we hauled a 5x8 enclosed trailer down to Carlisle, PA to the Corvettes of Carlisle car show and sold $1330 worth of parts at the swap meet. We ended up spending $1710. This included some Light weight 1999 C5 corvette seats, a New aerodynamic hood, 1 wheel, some little parts, fiberglass rear leaf spring, and the biggest thing we were trying to get, Manual rack and pinion conversion! It was a good week.

New Hood:

Untitled by AdamBrunette, on Flickr

BTW, both new seats weigh less then 1 original seat.

So the next weekend after we got back we started work on the frame again. Wer started by welding all the seams and fixing any cracked welds. The we sand blasted the entire frame to get ready for paint.

We primed the frame with an etching primer to get good adhesion on bare metal and then put down 2 coats of high gloss black urethane on the frame and any frame parts.

Frame ready for primer:

Untitled by AdamBrunette, on Flickr

All Primed:

Untitled by AdamBrunette, on Flickr

Nice Shiny Black!

Untitled by AdamBrunette, on Flickr

So this past week, alot of stuff was installed back onto the frame. Almost the entire front end is back together. I have also prototyped the bracket that will hold the light weight calipers on the spindles.

Frame with Front Suspension:

Untitled by AdamBrunette, on Flickr

Composite Front spring:

Untitled by AdamBrunette, on Flickr

Next things im working on finishing up are the rear suspension and rebuilding the rear differential. I will also be having the adaptor plate waterjet cut out of 2.5" piece of 7050-T7 aluminum. Then hopefully next weekend I can start building my motor mount!

Adapter and Motor"

Motor and Plate Assy Back by AdamBrunette, on Flickr

-Adam

[MetroMPG]

Good update. Nice to see this going again.