2011 Nissan Leaf modifications (efficiency and utility)
 

This is what I'm thinking for leaf mods.

First, get a 240v charger. I got a 3.8kw univeral 120/240v j1772 charger that should be here any day now. 120v is killing me I don't know how any one gets by with one of these as their primary vehicle slow charging on 120v power.
If you were thinking "I'll just plug it into that outlet by my front door" nope. I guess you could get by on 120v power if you could charge at work, the store, so on. If your only place to charge is at home, don't bet on 120v power.
Edit, got the 2nd charger and moded my original charger, I love charging on 240v power.
Edit #2, I also picked up a portable 10kw chademo unit, it pumps about 8kw in the batteries.

Trailer hitch, already here, just got to put it on.
Edit, the trailer hitch is on.

Alignment, next Thursday at 0900L, one of the front tires is worn kind of funny, it's probably just from being driven in the city and making sharp 90° right turns all the time but might as well get it checked out. Liberal Democrat ran utopias like Illinois, where this car was from tend to have really bad roads too.
Edit: the alignment was off a little.

A spare tire, the leaf doesn't have a spare, I didn't think it did. We run over all kinds of nails and junk here because people just don't care what they drop on the roads as they go to the dump.

Remove the lug key and put normal lug nuts on there. I live in the country no one is going to go around steal wheels off cars unless they are suicidal want to end up as pig feed.
Put normal 21mm lugs on there, nissan studs are 12x1.25mm, already looked it up.
Edit, done.

Add some kind of flat tow provision incase it gets ran dead. Our other 2 cars have hitches on them except for the useless VW which should be gone soon.
Edit: sold that POS VW for more than I thought I would be able to get for it, paid for 1/3 of the leaf.

Make the flat tow rig double as a supporting structure for an air dam.

Scalp my Yokohama avid ascend LRR tires off the VW, put new cheap Walmart junk on there to sell it, save the yokos for the leaf, the tires on the leaf now look like 10%, 20%, 35% and 35%. They would be useless on snow. The Yokohama tires on the bug are at least at 80%.
Edit: those tires went with the bug.

Tires, I will need 2 new tires soon.

Later on mod the original OEM nissan leaf charger to also take 240v power. It may seem redundant to have 2 chargers and that's the whole point. What happens when the original charger quits?
I want to leave a charger hard wired into 240v power at the house, so all I have to do is grab the j1772 and plug it into the car. Then keep the other one in the car. Along with some extension and adaptor cords.
All I should need for an adaptor cord is a 5-15p to 6-20r to charge anywhere with the universal j1772 charger and a L14-30p to 6-20r so I can charge the car while working on my rental house. Yes on one side of that house I installed a L14-30 and a 6-20 on the other side, plus three 120v receptacles inbetween. My old house was 100% electric car and welder ready.
Edit: this is done. One of the most effective mods.

Edit: Stick H9 led replacements on the high beams.

Stick a big flexible solar panel on the roof to provide most of the power needed by the 12v systems during the day.

I will consider switching over to steel 16 inch wheels if they are about the same weight as factory OE leaf alloy wheels just so I can put smooth hub caps on there. Or some smooth 16 inch aluminum wheel that are the same lug pattern and close enough off set.

Edit:
Leaf external battery cooling A/C. Make a Styrofoam cut out for the rear doors window and run a portable ducted A/C unit into the window. I read that cabin air vents through the battery to help cool it.

Edit:
Lower the leaf and use air bags to pump it back up.
The 2018 leaf got lowered to add more range.
But just lowering is problematic, as the roads are rough and I want to pull my trailer.
More ride hight would be better in town. Then slam it on the highway.

Sell the VW to replenish cash reserves and pay for leaf mods.
Edit: the bug sold much quicker than I anticipated, for $1850 and I didn't even have to do anything to it. I was planning on new head lights, a new pass side tail light, oil change, detail.
The bug sold the day after I listed it, apparently this guy had been looking for a sport package bug with mark IV engine that has lowish miles for a few months now.

What size is the leaf hub pattern? I'm assuming it's 5 on 4.5?
And don't know what the offset needs to be if there is one?
EDIT, I looked it up and found all nissan cars use the same wheel lug pattern, just different offsets.

Brake drag reducing springs.

Any other mod ideas?

Park it in the shade or tint the windows. Glad we did that.

Forgot what year yours is, but you could put on an aluminum hatch from the older years.

Lithium accessory battery.

Mine is a 2011.
The most hated year.

Scratch at least part of line item 10, I already have the better LED low beam headlights. I may investigate LED high beams.
Or going to 100w halogen highbeams.

May I ask what "charger" (aka, EVSE, charge cord or J1772 chord) you're getting? There's one made by a company called Zencar that seems to be there best bang for buck. But I see you have a "3kW" 240V onboard charger, unless it's been modified. So anything that takes a 20A or more 240V circuit will work for your car.
Cool! May I ask what you plan on towing? A future range extender perhaps?
On the one hand the owner's manual says to never tow flat with all four wheels on the ground. There is a good reason not to with a 2011 or 2012 Leaf, if the battery runs dead the parking brake locks on. But as long as you never let that happen, you can actually charge the Leaf with the tow vehicle by leaving it in D while towing it.
Great idea! I have 3. A 240V "40A" (32A actual) Aerovironment wall mounted unit, the original 120V cord that came with the car, and an 12A/16A/24A/32A Zencar EVSE cord that I also want to make adapters for.
Great idea! I think I could actually fit a full 6kW of solar on the roof for charging the car too. But it wouldn't be cheap.
Mod the car to accept more than 16A during 240V charging. You can do this by adding Brusa charger modules. Sometimes they come up cheap on eBay. The 2013 and later Leafs take up to 32A off a 40A circuit breaker or better, charging up in less than 4 hours (the 2011's and 12's charge up in less than 7 hours on 240V.). If your circuit breaker is 50A or 70A, you could add even more onboard chargers and charge even faster.

Also better battery cooling would increase the life of the battery. All Leaf batteries can see very little drop in capacity with over 10 years of use if the battery is kept cool. A hot Leaf battery can lose well over 10% of it's capacity every year.

The bursa charger modules are not cheap.
For the price of 1 or 2 of them I should be able to pick up a used single phase 240v powered CHAdeMO.

Edit: the used chademo was about $1,500, about $350 of it shipping from canada.

A single phase CHAdeMO would be awesome! I've seen some that were rated for 50Hz. But I'm not sure if they'd work in North America with 60Hz.

Seems like I remember 3.3kW Brusa chargers being about $5,000 brand new, but I've seen some used for a few hundred on eBay. But that was a while back, and sometimes it's too good to be true too.

Have you thought about any sort of range extender? I keep going back and forth ok several ideas. There are quite a few now getting a few dozen extra miles by means of am auxiliary battery in the trunk or even in the spare tire area.

About spare tires, it looks like Australian Leafs come equipped with them. Also, I want to say that the Altima (I could be wrong) spare tires work on the Leaf. But I do wonder if there's any difference in rims between the 2011 & 2012 Leafs and the 2013 and later Leafs. I do know that the brakes and some other parts are different, so could mess with the fitment of a doughnut, although I suspect they probably are the same.

I made a post about home CHAdeMO only with in the last few weeks. The single phase 240v 60Hz ones I found only charged at around 10 to 12kw.

If you get a flat in Australia you could die.
When I get a spare I will get a 5th full sized wheel assembly with no tpms.

Since mine has a 3 or 4 year old battery with most of its range intact I am not really thinking about a range extender beyond a flat tow setup.it appears that it should be able to do everything I was expecting it to.
The only range extender I might mess with is the solar panels, if the solar can take up most of the 200w 12v accessory that could give +2 miles per charge.

The trailer hitch is going to be used to pull my trailer and maybe even might trying pulling my chain harrow around with it. The leaf is definitely more comfortable than my tractor.

I'm probably just going to take a wheel off my trailer which i know has 5 on 4.5 zero off set and see if it fits the leaf, after I get the trailer hitch on. The back end of the leaf is up on ramps at the moment.
Then everything on my old "light weight wheels" post becomes relevant.
I was looking for OEM light weight wheels for my trailer that had 5 on 4.5 pattern. Most of the wheels found were 14 inch and up. I really only needed 12 or 13 inch wheels, any bigger and the trailer would be too high up off the ground for my liking.
I ended up going with alloy 12 inch load range E steel belted radial tires.

I have a pair of 2015 leaf headlights and taillights. I will let them go cheap. Will try to find out if they are LEDs, later today. They are in Florida.

I didnt realize it at first but I already have the better SV headlights which have LED low beams.
What are the advantages of the 2015 lights?
It appears 2015 has LED low beams, halogen highbeams, just like my 2011 SV lights.

On the topic of head lights the SV LED halogen high beams are H9 bulbs, they're 65w each. I will probably install an H9 LED replacement.

If I remember right, there's no difference between 2011 and 2015 lights. Only that in the beginning, the S Leafs didn't get LED low beams, but SV and SL did. However, later on (2016 I believe) Nissan started putting LED low beams only on the SL's and the SV's ended up getting that same lights as the S's.

Only reason I posted was trying to be helpful and possibly save you some $$. I had no idea what type bulbs they had.

And all help is appreciated. There are more than just one or two of us that would like to make our Leafs as practical as possible.

The difference between the two types of OE headlights are like in the picture. The LED's (blue car) have a more futuristic look with separate high and low beam sections, whereas the regular halogens (red car) have that distinct incandescent look in a single high/low bulb.

http://www.gjlenterprise.com/LEAFLED...dlights-18.jpg

There are aftermarket LED bulbs, like for making the high beams LED. The blinkers (flashers/indicators) can also be changed for LED's. Or you can do what one guy did and put a type of trailer light controller in the rear hooked up to the brakes lights so that the red LED's work as both brake lights and blinkers.

Every little bit adds up you know. But the best bang for buck would start with the rear end aerodynamics:

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-K...314_144133.jpg

Mine looks like the blue car.

The trailer hitch is on.
You reuse the tow loop 12mm bolts and secure the hitch with 3 nuts supplied by Curt on the rear passenger side. Instead of using the provided nuts I cut the nut plate off the old tow loop with my portable band saw and used it.
I figure the nut plate is stronger and there is no chance the nuts can back off.

Awesome!

Just a note for anyone else reading this, there are two trailer hitch options that I know of for Leaves. (Or should I say Leafs?) One is the Curt hitch. I think they're rated for 1,500lbs tow and 150lbs tongue if I remember right. If you need a bit more there is the EcoHitch by Torklift Central that is rated for 2,000lbs and 200lbs tongue if I remember right. The EcoHitch also comes with two receiver size options, so you could get a full sized 2" receiver if you wanted on a Leaf.

I've heard of one guy that tows a rather large and heavy trailer full of hay with his Leaf. But a trailer hitch is also a good place to put a removable range extender. It could be on a trailer or in a basket behind the Leaf.

I'm going to at least tow pallets, IBC totes on my trailer with the leaf.
The most pallets I have ever towed with my trailer was 18, which was probably less than 1,000lb. The heaviest I ever towed with it was about a ton of concrete, mortar and tile when I did the bathroom.

I already got the 1.5 Inch hitch it should handle most things.

Anything more than about 1,000lb should have a trailer with trailer brakes and a vehicle with brake controller.
I doubt the leaf will have any towing advantage over the firebird which weighs 3,600lb, has 11 inch wide ultra high performance tires and corvette brakes up front and the most I want to town with it is about 1,200lb.

Very good advice, especially for a Leaf!

The Torklift EcoHitch is a high quality unit, and their shipping packaging is as good as it gets. My brother has one on his i3 REx, and is putting one on their Bolt EV. He has towed 2,000 pounds, and it works very well. The i3 is short wheelbase, and with electric torque, towing a trailer is better than usual.

Torklift is more than twice the cost of any other hitch. I have one and like it, especially since it hides the crossbar under the bumper, but I was barely willing to buy it on sale given the premium you'll pay.

That's alright, the curt hitch was $105 shipped with ebay coupon.

Anyone know if the 2011 and 2013 EVSE are the same?
(3.13)CONVERTING a 2013 LEAF LEVEL 1 (12AMP) CHARGER TO a LEVEL 2 (12AMP) CHARGER

Seeing how they are listed differently at places like:

EVSE upgrade

My guess would be that they are not exactly the same. But who knows how different.

That's what I was looking for.
Mine is the original brick.
Their upgrade is more than what I paid for the 120/240v charger I just bought.
I guess it's for people who don't understand that you don't have to use the exact same j1772 that came with the car.

You mean, J1772 is a STANDARD?! Bizarre! :):D:thumbup:

From what I have seen and heard on the GM side, it's simply rewiring the charger from 120 to 240. Then, you just use a simple pigtail if you still want to use L1 charging on 120.

https://www.greencarreports.com/news...but-is-it-safe

No, 2011 and 2012 are the same, then they went to the one you linked.

The correct instructions for the 2011 are here:

(3.0)CONVERTING a LEAF LEVEL 1 (12AMP) CHARGER TO a LEVEL 2 (12AMP) CHARGER

I remember being confused somewhere in the instructions, but I don't remember where. Let me know if you run into something unclear and that should jog my memory.

I've got extra varistors of the correct rating if you want 'em. Just PM me your address and I'll send you some.

I have 130 and 275 volt MOVs laying around, I add them to things like welders, air compressors and generators.
I installed two 130v MOVs wired L to N to L, exactly how I dowith my welding machines.

I got the original EVSE changed over to 240v power. I used a premium molded 10-30 dryer cord. 10 gauge is a little over kill for 12 amps but oh well.

Cost $0 because I used junk I had laying around.

Looks something like this.
http://ecomodder.com/forum/attachmen...1&d=1527090638

The neutral prong on the old 5-15p was a little burned. These 12 amp 120v chargers should probably be using TT-30 the newish small camper receptacle or L5-30 plus and receptacle, just because you can be drawing 12 amps for 20+ hours, things heat up.
Or repurpose a 10-30 dryer cord for 120v, just make the left prong your neutral when looking at the receptacle and L prong the groumd. Something that I have seen on old military generators.
I use L5-30 for my 120v master cord and 120v tig welder.

The leaf is pulling my small trailer quite well around town.

Has anyone added better thermal management to the battery pack? I looked into it a bit in the past but didn't find anything.

There is a cold weather package and I think I have it.

I was going to take my single duct portable A/C unit and run a duct into the back doors window. I read that the leaf vents cabin air through the battery. So a 1 ton open loop A/C pumping air into the leaf should be able to cool the battery some.

Or tint the windows

Not that I know of.

Existing TMS
From what I understand the existing "thermal management" works like this. On 2011 and 2012 cars a battery heater is optional, and on all 2013 and later cars this battery heater is a standard feature. When extremely cold the battery heater uses some 300 watts, but only to keep the battery from being damaged from freezing. I've noticed in the bitter cold that my Leaf has terrible performance and range in spite of having a battery heater. The winter package also comes with a thin wrap of insulation around the battery.

For cooling the battery there is a space above and below it that air passes through as the car drives down the road. Some of the car's climate control also exhausts on the battery. This has been noticed because the battery will slightly cool if you use the AC and slightly heat if you use the heater. However, the cooling and heating effects are minimal. You can get better results by simply parking in or out of the shade.

TMS ideas

1. One idea would be to just blow more air around the battery. There is some space behind the motor and controller where some blowers could be installed and blow more air around the battery. Of course this will only help bring battery temperatures closer to ambient, but that's better than nothing.
   
2. Another idea would be to do the above but with some sort of water spray for cooling. Or cool the air some other way.
   
3. A third idea would be to apply cooled seat technology to the battery. The battery is one big box. But if wrapped in some sort of tubing then cooled (or even heated) coolant could be pumped around the battery.
   
4. The best TMS idea would be to redesign the whole battery. The battery has enough space to hold some 72kWh of electricity if you replace the Leaf's modules with the right cells (like LG MJ1 18650 cells). Even replacing the Leaf modules with Tesla/Panasonic cells you'd get some 50kWh. Since most other cells are cylindrical (like 18650's) that leaves space between them for tubing. Of course this would not be the kind of project for the faint of heart.

Another thought for Oil Pan 4. The 2012 Leaf has a water-coolant based heater. If you use the heater much one thing that can be done to improve heater efficiency is to wrap the exposed heater lines with insulation. Also the 2011 and 2012 Leafs were designed so that you can't turn on the climate control fan without engaging the heater or AC. But with the right knowhow, you can set up a switch that will allow you to use your fan but turn off the heater when you simply want air, like for defogging.

This pack will have to get weak enough for me to want to replace it then I will consider some kind of major upgrade that involves tearing into the battery.

Until then I may drop the pack and coat it with A•B sprayed foam. But I would probably save that till it gets cold, after I see how it does during the summer. If I insulate it too well it may not want to cool during the summer.
Constant driving and charging like I did yesterday heated it up some.

It may just need an air conditioned garage lol.

Because right now, the plan is to drive the firebird if it's going to be exceptionally hot or cold out and save the battery.

The leaf is getting the alignment checked now.
I told them to go for 0 toe in even if it's toe in is with spec.
Even if going to 0 toe in only adds a half mile of range, ha try pushing that thing for a half of a mile. I would rather not.

I wanted to figure out a way to pull a trailer of batteries and/or small generator and charge our Leaf while out and about so we can do longer trips.
But, i would need to run high voltage lines from the front to the back...
Also, with the limited thermal management, would charging and discharging at the same time cause too much heat?

This is perfectly possible and has been done several times. Basically you connect the extra battery or generator to the main bus on the car and then match the voltage and then feed current into the main bus.

However, there is no such thing as charging and discharging at the same time. Either current is going into the battery or it is coming out. A river can only flow one way, and the same is true of electrical current. There's likely only one thing that would happen with an extra battery and three possibilities with a generator.

1. If the motor is pulling X amount of current the current will be divided between all the batteries. For an example, if your trailer battery is twice the size of the Leaf's main battery then 1/3 of the current will come out of the main battery and 2/3 from the trailer battery. If the generator is small. less than 15kW, then you will normally be using some current from the main battery and some from the generator as the car goes down the road.
2. If the generator puts out about 15kW or 20hp, then at highway speeds the battery may not be charged nor discharged while driving, except a little when going up or down small hills or when accelerating and decelerating. But overall, the battery's level of charge will stay roughly the same during the trip.
3. If the generator is big enough, like 30kW or 40hp, then it will be able to both charge the battery and drive the car at the same time. Basically current from the generator will come to the main bus and split, part going to the motor and part going to the battery. Of course once the battery is full you'd have to turn down the power output of the generator so as to not overcharge the battery.

The effect of adding another battery or a generator will be a cooler main battery because it will be under less load.

I already have a mobile 17.5kw generator trailer.
If there is a way to put 240v power to the car while driving I would like to know. I already have the main component to pull that off.

Turns out the alignment was off a little.

Overcharging is another concern... being able to automate turning down or off the generator once the battery was at 80% would be great... I guess I could just rig up some remote and turn off the generator, but would really prefer it to happen automagically, in case I was distracted or otherwise preoccupied.