EV build...feeler thread

[Christ]

Originally Posted by younggun

i'm assuming that you had a cougar of this same time period..did you convert it?

Yeah, something like that...

If you can call a 351/T5 "converting" it.

[Christ]

By the way, weight is weight. If you can get rid of anything in that car, that you won't need, or miss, get rid of it. (Keep it legal, and sane.)

[ModelE]

Originally Posted by Christ

By the way, weight is weight. If you can get rid of anything in that car, that you won't need, or miss, get rid of it. (Keep it legal, and sane.)

yeah, i'll try not to get too overboard for sure. will converting it to an EV mess with any of the safety features, like the airbags?

and of the 351, a few years ago i would have said hah

[Christ]

As long as you keep power to the airbag circuit, no, it won't mess with them. I don't personally even see a use for them, since they only deploy under certain conditions, and probably aren't as necessary for typical EV speeds.

IMO - they're xtra weight. You may see it differently than I do, but that's my .02 for ya.

Most of the HVAC system can go - you won't be using it, unless you install a ceramic heater in place of the heater core, or water cool your engine (very inefficient, and the engine probably won't get hot enough to worry about it.

The issues with removing interior are obvious - noise, vibration, heat.

Noise - The chassis is pretty solid, and doesn't xmit sound as much as a Honda CRX would, but it can still get pretty noisy in there on the highway. There are several things you can do to rid the noise, like replacing bushings, and using lower-noise tires (which usually are lower Rolling resistance as well, although not rated LRR)

Vibration - can usually be solved with little bits of paper, usually helps w/ the noise too.

Heat - not to fret - you don't have a 200 HP heater in front of you anymore, so remove the insulation as well. (This is only really a problem in the winter, and you won't likely be driving an EV through the winter enough to say so.)

[theunchosen]

I would skip the trans completely.

Transmission on a good day from high-end units lose 10% power.

Electric motors are rated for 0 rpm torque. Obviously you want to run them in optimum rpm range. So just decide where you will be using this. If you use it around town set your motors optimum range(3.5-5K) for 30-45ish. If you plan on short highway hops set the peak range from 50-65 and run it as slow as you are comfortable with.

Engine and trans total delete will jump start you well on your way to 1000#s. I would venture a guess and say halfway. Delete all the other seats, spare tire, radiators, ac, ac cooling vents, lines, fuel lines fuel pumps, gas caps, fuel needle. . .^_^.

That said. . .its still going to be pretty darn heavy. If you start around 22-2500 #s and then dump all that stuff you end up down around 1500. The flip-side is adding weight in the form of batteries for the power back won't be as painful because the car is heavy anyway. . .I know thats like saying it doesn't hurt as much to make a dumptruck EV. . .but hey you have to live with slow acceleration with a heavy car so a little bit slower won't hurt you.

Those people that have really light EVs can likely feel the difference with an extra battery onboard, but you won't notice anymore than you notice a passenger now.

[Christ]

getting rid of the engine/trans and related components will throw you over 1k# to begin with.

If it were me, I'd get rid of the ABS system too, and probably the power brake booster. You can adapt the brake system to make the pedal easier to push, by either changing components, or changing pedal leverage.

I'd be interested in finding a lighter driveshaft, or eliminating it altogether.

The hood is ridiculously heavy, and is relatively easy to clone in fiberglass. If you can lay fiberglass, you can cut the fenders down to frames w/ the stock bolt locations intact, and lay FG in.

Door skins.

Deck lid.

You can feasibly hit 1500 lbs total weight by lightening that car. You should more likely shoot for 22-2300 though, and if you're comfortable going further than that, it's all "downhill from there" so to speak.

Aeromodding the ThunderChicken is relatively easy, too, since it has a nice, long, coupe shape to start off with.

Probably the single best improvement you could make is to extend the rear roofline of the car down to the trailing edge of the decklid, essentially making it a hatchback. That alone would give you the same relative shape as a Corvette!

The heaviest components will be the suspension and braking systems, since they needed to be larger to deal with the extra weight of the car itself. Find alternatives for those, and you're golden as far as weight loss goes. (Don't mess with the brakes too much if you're not familiar with them - weight isn't as important as stopping)

[Allch Chcar]

Originally Posted by theunchosen

I would skip the trans completely.
Transmission on a good day from high-end units lose 10% power.
...

The whole driveline is 15% on a manual. What told you the transmission was 10 points alone?

I've seen trannies weigh in around 75lbs. Yours probably differs. The tranny is for balancing; acceleration and topspeed/fueleconomy/durability(basically lower rpms).

If you don't need the acceleration you can sell the tranny and the driveline and hook the electric motor to the rear differential.

Have you considered a hybrid system for the car? I've had an idea of using one of Ford's 2.3L longitude mount engines with a mustang tranny with an electric motor pancaked between the two, the problem is currently how to control the shaft from the ICE to the motor so that it can be disconnected while the ICE is off for electric drive and turned on for recharge and ICE cruising. I'm thinking it needs a two way locking differential.

I prefer the thought of using 600lbs for an ICE and fuel tank and only using 200lbs in batteries instead of using 800lbs to get the range of a gallon of gasoline. Even though the fuel economy will be better than stock, the electric motor gear would add another 200lbs to the mix. And it won't get the efficiency of an all electric.

[ModelE]

Yeah, i think that a homebrew hybrid would be a little much. but these are all great inputs and i'll keep this thread posted.

[theunchosen]

He's using an auto trans at the moment. He said he was considering swapping out for a manual.

Auto trans are pretty junky as far as efficiency goes and I can't really see something else along the drive train sucking up more than 5+% than a box full of fluid rotating gears meshing.

I'd go with what Christ said. If you drop all the ICE components and do some body work you're a ripe candidate for EV. Maybe even more so because to have a large shell to put batteries around the car to keep it from being polarized around them.

You've also got lots of dash and rear window space for solar panels(where they are harder to steal and don't affect aero). If you rework the hood you could leave sections for stiff panels on the hood and the trunk. You'd never get as much power as you were using but with two stiffs in front and one in back you could recovery .6 kwhr or .9hphrs. Also would let you recharge it while you are getting groceries or at work for extended battery life and less recharge cost from the grid.

[Allch Chcar]

Younggun, good luck with your T-bird EV. Ditto on the homebrew hybrid being difficult.

Slushboxes aka automatic transmission *the complete drivetrain* reduces power by 25% compared to the 15% a manual drivetrain gets on average. I haven't seen anything suggesting higher losses, but I've heard of auto's getting 75% their rated crank horsepower and manuals being so consistently close to 15% that people use the 15% driveline losses to calculate crank horsepower. The transmission and differential are a box of gears filled with slippy oil. But there is also the driveshaft, rear axle, two wheels and their tires, u-joints, wheels bearings, I'm sure there a few more parts.