EV West Electric Crate Motor, Thoughts?

[Irace86.2.0]

Originally Posted by TRS

Question is if the space of the fuel tank and maybe additional space in the engine bay would be enough to install enough capacity for a reasonable range. And also the question is what weight this would mean compared to the conventional options.

Besides that a cool idea in matters of engineering, but it cant realy get me in an emotional way. Even if it would be faster. StarTrek sound and screaming tires are something my brian cannot overlay in a convenient way. Maybe I'm a Neanderthal, sorry.

The fuel tank, rear seats, muffler, trunk are all potential locations. What is more ideal is to put the controllers/inverters/EV other stuff in the front where the motor was, and then put a transverse motor in the rear and lose the driveshaft. Stack the batteries where the fuel tank is located. On second thought. It may be easier to cut the floor out of the 86, and set the shell on a Tesla Model 3 powertrain.

A full EV swap is probably $25k-50k depending on the motor, batteries, size of the batteries and system accessories and integration.

[Ultramaroon]

Originally Posted by Turdinator

From the youtubes I have watched of EV conversions, the motors tend to be small enough to fit in the transmission tunnel which leaves room in the engine bay for batteries. Hard to say from the couple of photos in the article but I'd hazard a guess at it being considerably smaller than a LS motor.

Imagine fitting all that mass between the wheels longitudinally. Some more in place of fuel tank.

But also remember how long the Tesla lasts at full bore.

[FunnyGopher]

Originally Posted by bcj

Where do you put the batteries to make it move?
If you put them above the axle centerline it won't go around corners very well.

My understanding was the batteries were in the unit and that no additional batteries were needed. I don't think I've actually read that though.

EDIT
Don't listen to me, I'm dumb. My initial impression was that batteries were included. They are definitely not, this is just the motor.

[Irace86.2.0]

Originally Posted by FunnyGopher

My understanding was the batteries were in the unit and that no additional batteries were needed. I don't think I've actually read that though.

EDIT
Don't listen to me, I'm dumb. My initial impression was that batteries were included. They are definitely not, this is just the motor.

It is actually more than just the motor, but yes, the batteries are separate.

https://www.slashgear.com/ev-west-ha...-kit-03640947/

When it comes to electric vehicle performance and range today, Tesla sits at the top. A company called EV West has a new EV conversion kit designed to make the process of turning cars never meant to be electrically powered into electric vehicles easier. The conversion kit uses a Tesla motor and will fit into any car that’s capable of accepting a Chevy small block engine.

You may be surprised at how many vehicles can fit a Chevy small block under the hood that were never meant to be powered by that engine. The EV West Tesla crate motor kit comes with brackets allowed to be bolted into anything with mounts for either a Chevy LS or Chevy small-block V-8 engine. Not only does that cover decades worth of Chevy products, but any car that can be converted to work with that engine will also support the Tesla motor swap.

The electric conversion kit includes the motor and bracket along with the power inverter. Tesla doesn’t sell new individual motors to anyone, so the motor used has been refurbished by EV West. The conversion kit doesn’t require a transmission and connects directly to a driveshaft. It has a 2:1 reduction gear before going to the driveshaft and differential.

EV West suggests using a 4:1 rear end, giving an overall drive ratio of 8:1. That, combined with smaller wheels and tires, would give gearing similar to a standard Tesla. The conversion, as you might suspect, isn’t inexpensive.

EV West says that the crate motor will be available in a month or two and will cost around $30,000. Additional components, including batteries, can bring a complete powertrain conversion to $50,000. We have to wonder how poorly Tesla will take this news. It hates its components being used in anything other than a Tesla vehicle.

[Irace86.2.0]

Also, several EV 86’s have been done before:

https://www.google.com/amp/s/insidee...leaf-swap/amp/

https://www.greencarreports.com/news...-a-tuning-shop

Does a hybrid count?

https://www.thedrive.com/new-cars/41...aru-brz-hybrid

[TRS]

Originally Posted by Irace86.2.0

The fuel tank, rear seats, muffler, trunk are all potential locations. What is more ideal is to put the controllers/inverters/EV other stuff in the front where the motor was, and then put a transverse motor in the rear and lose the driveshaft. Stack the batteries where the fuel tank is located. On second thought. It may be easier to cut the floor out of the 86, and set the shell on a Tesla Model 3 powertrain.

A full EV swap is probably $25k-50k depending on the motor, batteries, size of the batteries and system accessories and integration.

Hmm, why should the Muffler and Trunk be a far netter Position for heavy Batteries than splitted positioning between OEM fuel tank Position and engine bay as close to firewall as possible?

Ever drove a Tesla Roadster? Batteripackage and Motor in the rear. Great acceleration but terible handling if you ask me...

[Irace86.2.0]

Originally Posted by Irace86.2.0

The fuel tank, rear seats, muffler, trunk are all potential locations. What is more ideal is to put the controllers/inverters/EV other stuff in the front where the motor was, and then put a transverse motor in the rear and lose the driveshaft. Stack the batteries where the fuel tank is located. On second thought. It may be easier to cut the floor out of the 86, and set the shell on a Tesla Model 3 powertrain.

A full EV swap is probably $25k-50k depending on the motor, batteries, size of the batteries and system accessories and integration.

Originally Posted by TRS

Hmm, why should the Muffler and Trunk be a far netter Position for heavy Batteries than splitted positioning between OEM fuel tank Position and engine bay as close to firewall as possible?

Ever drove a Tesla Roadster? Batteripackage and Motor in the rear. Great acceleration but terible handling if you ask me...

I didn't say the muffler and trunk would be better. I said they were possible.

I said the ideal setup would be to have the motor in the rear and the batteries in the fuel tank location, and then I joked about cutting the shell of a 86 and setting it on the Tesla powertrain aka the skateboard.

I think the best setup is the batteries in the rear behind the driver and between the wheels. The motor would be best in the rear between the wheels, so the car is lighter because it doesn't need the drive shaft and differential bits. The inverter and other controllers can go up front. This should keep most of the weight central with a bias on the rear wheels for the best traction.

The original Roadster has a wheelbase that was 92'', so the 86 would have nine more inches of space for the batteries, which should allow everything to lower below the wheels, where the original roadster had stuff above the wheels. I have never been in a Roadster, but the handling seems to get compared to a Lotus that shares the same chassis, yet the Lotus weighs like 2200lbs, so I don't know if that is the best comparison. Maybe the weight is too rear biased like a Porsche or something, or maybe it is what I said, and the weight is too high because of the wheelbase. I think someone could do a 86 right, especially if they wanted to make a track car because they could remove the passenger seat and add a similar weight to their weight battery in that location for balance, which would be in addition to the one behind them in the seat/fuel tank position.

On a separate note, it is worth noting that the Tesla Roadster weighed about the same as an 86, and it had 248hp and 200tq, which isn't amazing, yet because of the instant torque and gearless transmission, it was able to go 0-60 in 3.9 seconds and do a quarter mile in the 12.6s.

[drivejumpfly]

Kind of funny that last night I was talking with my friends about the 2022 Tesla Model S Plaid supposedly running 8s in the 1/4 mile. Made me think of checking this forum because I called EV West earlier this year to see if they thought about making a conversion for the FR-S. They said they only modified older cars and kit cars at that point in time. I would be interested in an electric swap kit for an FR-S only if it is cheaper than an LSX swap kit. I just can't justify the price of the LSX swap kit alone - might as well just buy a Camaro or a Mustang and mod from there.

If money was not a constraint, a dual motor Tesla P85D swap into this car would be insane. Subscribing to this thread.

[Irace86.2.0]

Originally Posted by drivejumpfly

Kind of funny that last night I was talking with my friends about the 2022 Tesla Model S Plaid supposedly running 8s in the 1/4 mile. Made me think of checking this forum because I called EV West earlier this year to see if they thought about making a conversion for the FR-S. They said they only modified older cars and kit cars at that point in time. I would be interested in an electric swap kit for an FR-S only if it is cheaper than an LSX swap kit. I just can't justify the price of the LSX swap kit alone - might as well just buy a Camaro or a Mustang and mod from there.

If money was not a constraint, a dual motor Tesla P85D swap into this car would be insane. Subscribing to this thread.

I think the reason why they do conversions on older cars is for several reasons. For one thing, the classics are simpler, so it isn’t necessary to integrate modern systems like CANBUS, ABS, TC, ESC, etc. Second, many old cars weigh much less, so range and performance will be greater or cheaper. Also, many classic shells are relatively cheap compared to retrofitting brand new cars. Lastly, classic cars typically have polluting powertrains, so these retrofits are ideal for conscious drivers looking for nostalgia without the smells, pollutants and maintenance.

[drivejumpfly]

I just don't see the $50K appeal. You can buy a Model 3 Performance for $50K brand new. It's an ugly electric car, to me, and I doubt the driving experience will be as fun as an electric FR-S, but it's an ugly electric car with a warranty. The only way this is remotely sensible is if you are trying to comply with strict emissions laws and you don't want to deal with removing modifications for emissions tests. Isn't a fully built FR-S engine $9K or less? $50K puts you in the ballpark of several nice used cars. I will keep monitoring this to see how long it takes for the price to come down.

[TRS]

Laptimes @ Nordschleife

Tesla P85D (lightweight compound body, magnesium parts used for major parts of axels and rolling chassis, E drive optmized chassis, AWD, and YES 7 seats): 8.50s

Subaru BRZ (2.0 NA boxer not-any-kind-of-a-legend engine, low cost traditional chassis design, lightweight by aluminium hood, RWD, and redicioulous 2+2 seats): 8.19s

Sorry, not talking about top secret ring monster builds, developed for the attempts to beat other models of sportscar manufacturers. I would lean that far out the window to say if subayota would have had any intresst to do something like that with the 86 chassis they might have put in a FI 2.0 boxer, semi slicks, widebody and some other sweetness to have this chassis running middle of the 7min too. (sure, you need two of them to Transport the same amount of passengers, but you could buy probably 3 to 4 of them for the same price) But I think they dont have that kind of interesst. Why? Simple: No one cares.

To be clear, I dont want to put hate on any E vehicles. But I dont like the massive hype. Both concepts have pros and cons and I would say that in the end there will be a coexistence. (Local) emmisions are not the big, beating all other points argument for E vehicles, since there is more to be taken into consideration than only local emmisions. There is also a chemical time bomb which, in my book, nobody has a realy full solution for at the moment. On the other hand there are concepts for sythetic fuel, generated by using CO2 out of ambient air and electricity. Nobody is following this. If you ask me because its currently not "trending". Something one could say about E vehicle 10 years ago. Even hydrogen is a better concept in my eyes if we are talking about total emmissions.

This beeing said, I didnt had the intension to start a pro or con E mobility debate. Thats useless since more then enough other Us are debating about that. I just wasnt abel to withstand my frustration that specific concepts are hyped and nobody realy takes care of downsides and does a straight forward, pure technical discussion, which also takes possible future developments and more than only two of the possible concepts into consideration. Thats also the only reason I (intensionaly) used the striking expression in the beginning of this post: Its used by the supporters of the one and the other concept. No matter if we take the E-mobility-is-the-only-future-guys or the LS-everything-guys or the everything-needs-FI-guys.

Now PLEASE, BTT: I'm still not convinced that a EV swap in a 86 chassis is reasonable compared to other possible options in matter of peeformance and effort. (What absolutely not means that its not an attractive option seen from an engineering standpoint) I also would say that this needs be discussed under the assumption that the car in question is not a pure racer. This brings to much hypothtical options (like cutting of the chassis to have a netter place for batteries/motors etc) For example: a LS swap is possible without that. And I understand the swap EV motor above as an attempt to do it exactly this way. Furthermore even a LS swap could be made with cutting the chassis and using a Corvette tranaxle to achieve different bias. What I want to say: we should compare under equal restrictions.

Pricing for the swap is also an open topic in my eyes. In the states (and to keep it reasonably simple we should stay under that assumption) a LS swap is possible for mid to high 4 digit numbers. It is also possible for far more, no doubt about that. But what is the price for a reasonable EV swap? I didnt find any confirmed numbers about that, only guessing.

Last thing, without cutting or massive modifications on the chassi, would the available space (what is fuel tank and engine bay) would be enough to place capacity for lets say 250-300miles? What would be price and weight? This are the 3 base questions which should be investigated here...

[Sapphireho]

My Tamyia Bruiser had the same motor.

[Irace86.2.0]

Originally Posted by TRS

Laptimes @ Nordschleife

Tesla P85D (lightweight compound body, magnesium parts used for major parts of axels and rolling chassis, E drive optmized chassis, AWD, and YES 7 seats): 8.50s

Subaru BRZ (2.0 NA boxer not-any-kind-of-a-legend engine, low cost traditional chassis design, lightweight by aluminium hood, RWD, and redicioulous 2+2 seats): 8.19s

Sorry, not talking about top secret ring monster builds, developed for the attempts to beat other models of sportscar manufacturers. I would lean that far out the window to say if subayota would have had any intresst to do something like that with the 86 chassis they might have put in a FI 2.0 boxer, semi slicks, widebody and some other sweetness to have this chassis running middle of the 7min too. (sure, you need two of them to Transport the same amount of passengers, but you could buy probably 3 to 4 of them for the same price) But I think they dont have that kind of interesst. Why? Simple: No one cares.

To be clear, I dont want to put hate on any E vehicles. But I dont like the massive hype. Both concepts have pros and cons and I would say that in the end there will be a coexistence. (Local) emmisions are not the big, beating all other points argument for E vehicles, since there is more to be taken into consideration than only local emmisions. There is also a chemical time bomb which, in my book, nobody has a realy full solution for at the moment. On the other hand there are concepts for sythetic fuel, generated by using CO2 out of ambient air and electricity. Nobody is following this. If you ask me because its currently not "trending". Something one could say about E vehicle 10 years ago. Even hydrogen is a better concept in my eyes if we are talking about total emmissions.

This beeing said, I didnt had the intension to start a pro or con E mobility debate. Thats useless since more then enough other Us are debating about that. I just wasnt abel to withstand my frustration that specific concepts are hyped and nobody realy takes care of downsides and does a straight forward, pure technical discussion, which also takes possible future developments and more than only two of the possible concepts into consideration. Thats also the only reason I (intensionaly) used the striking expression in the beginning of this post: Its used by the supporters of the one and the other concept. No matter if we take the E-mobility-is-the-only-future-guys or the LS-everything-guys or the everything-needs-FI-guys.

Now PLEASE, BTT: I'm still not convinced that a EV swap in a 86 chassis is reasonable compared to other possible options in matter of peeformance and effort. (What absolutely not means that its not an attractive option seen from an engineering standpoint) I also would say that this needs be discussed under the assumption that the car in question is not a pure racer. This brings to much hypothtical options (like cutting of the chassis to have a netter place for batteries/motors etc) For example: a LS swap is possible without that. And I understand the swap EV motor above as an attempt to do it exactly this way. Furthermore even a LS swap could be made with cutting the chassis and using a Corvette tranaxle to achieve different bias. What I want to say: we should compare under equal restrictions.

Pricing for the swap is also an open topic in my eyes. In the states (and to keep it reasonably simple we should stay under that assumption) a LS swap is possible for mid to high 4 digit numbers. It is also possible for far more, no doubt about that. But what is the price for a reasonable EV swap? I didnt find any confirmed numbers about that, only guessing.

Last thing, without cutting or massive modifications on the chassi, would the available space (what is fuel tank and engine bay) would be enough to place capacity for lets say 250-300miles? What would be price and weight? This are the 3 base questions which should be investigated here...

Neither of those times are from professional drivers, so I don't know how much weight you can put into them. I don't know what the Tesla had, but the BRZ had Ferodo DS2500 brake pads and Federal 595 RS-R tires. The Tesla weighs 5,000lbs, so almost double the weight of the BRZ. I don't know what an electric BRZ would weigh, but it wouldn't be 5,000lbs unless someone wanted it to weigh that much. Then again, weight may not matter. Someone could just want an electric powertrain in an 86 platform because they like the 86's aesthetics over buying a Tesla, or they want something green, or maybe they just like the idea of a different swap, or maybe they want the feel of an electric powertrain. Maybe all they care about is 0-60 or quarter mile times and aren't trying to break any lap records. I don't know. Maybe all they want is low/no maintenance and reliability from something modified and fun. There are so many reasons to do an EV swap that has nothing to do with maximizing every aspect of performance. This is true of all swaps.

Which hype? The idea that electric vehicles are the future, or the fact that the Tesla Model S Plaid was faster around Laguna Seca than the top sports cars and hypercars for less money (makes one wonder what the new Roadster will do)? EVs are not everything for everyone. There are some applications where they don't do great, and they have limitations. There are others where they might have an advantage like at altitude where air is thin and ICEs can struggle, which is perhaps why the record at Pike Peak is currently set by an electric car, to name an example.

Chemical time bomb? Do you mean the battery? They are getting recycled or repurposed for grid storage. Hydrogen is a more expensive and less efficient means of turning electricity into locomotion. In the future, when energy is cheap and plentiful, and we have an abundance of extra energy that we can use to hydrolyze water, then making hydrogen in a green way will be possible, but until then, it just isn't green. Making synthetic oil/fuel from CO2 could be done if fuels are absolutely necessary. Of course, we use oil for all types of things that don't result in CO2 emissions, but this whole process is dependent on green sources of energy production, so it isn't sustainable without those processes. For instance, energy is needed to extra CO2 from the air, and then energy is needed to make the hydrogen, which currently 95% of hydrogen comes from fossil fuels, and then more energy is needed to make the hydrocarbons, which if the energy comes from a coal plant then this isn't a green process. Moreover, this just perpetuates the hunger for oil in our economy instead of finding sustainable solutions. Perhaps, if we have an abundance of green energy production then this would be possible, but it isn't green currently, which is why it isn't trending.

It would be cool to see someone do an EV conversion. It would take someone with some engineering skill.

[Irace86.2.0]

http://www.weltreisewerkstatt.de/?page_id=317

Motor
Nissan Leaf 2014
Power: 136Kw, 370Nm peak torque
Connected to the OEM Gearbox by a custom made coupler and adapter plate.

Transmission
Stock GT86 Transmission mounted to the Leaf Motor.

Battery Pack
24 KWh Battery pack with 48 modules and 96 cells out of the Leaf 2012
Spread through the car in various places:
Custom modified spare wheel well for 24 modules
Custom made fuel tank boxes for 12 modules
2 custom made boxes in front, one under the motor with 6 modules and one next to the motor with 6 modules

Battery Management System
Orion BMS 2
Everything is fully CAN-bus controlled

Inverter
Nissan Leaf Inverter with Johannes Huebner main board, fully CAN-bus controlled

GT86 ECU
Arduino based replacement ECU for CAN communication with custom written code in C

Charger
ELTEK Valere 3Kw Charger, fully CAN-bus controlled
Chademo-Fast-Charging

DC-DC converter
First GEN-Tesla Model S 360vDC to 12vDC converter

Range: 120 Km
Fast Charging: 20-80% in 20 Minutes
0-100: 6.7 Seconds

Weights in Kg
Before After
Front 710 680
Rear 560 660
Total 1270 1340
Ratio F 56% / R 44% F 51% / R 49%