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Re: Electric roadster

Posted: 07 May 2014 21:45
by icehouse
Slow and steady that's how this project is going to get done. I keep adding to the assemblies and drawings. Today since it was sunny I started drawing the engine bay and the underside of the car. I didn't get as far as I wanted but I did get enough done to see if the Leaf motor would fit in the front. My dream is AWD mmmhhh 420 foot pounds of torque :) It looks like the front motor will fit too!!!! Since the weather is looking bad till this weekend I'm not going to be able to finish the underside of the drawing, damn! So I figured I'd have to post at least this one picture for now!!


The big square hole is the actual "tranny tunnel" that the PO enlarged for the straight 6 he was going to install into it. I'm sure it's kinda hard to tell what you are looking at.. haha I haven't colored anything or finished the engine bay. basically we are looking at it from the front.



Image

Re: Electric roadster

Posted: 07 May 2014 23:45
by Byron510
Eh Jeff, like many I will follow your work with great interest.
Like I said many years ago, I'm not solely attached to an internal combustion engine, infact I couldn't care less what powers my car as long as it's reasonably quick and doesn't try to kill its occupants. Legal is a bonus, but not completely necessary. :-)

I was at a friends garage today, a Subaru Forrester was up on the hoist. I'm staring up at the drive train as I too have always loved the idea of an AWD 510. Your speaking to the right church.

The subi motor is short, but the distance from the CL of the front wheels to the front of the motor is too long.
Then my train of thought took a wild path. What if you took the motor away, removed the bell housing front the transmission and put an electric motor on top of the transmission. Connect the two by gears, drive belt, chain... What ever turns your crank. Front engine, AWD, and it will easily fit within the chassis of a 510 or something of similar size. If you wanted to go really crazy, use more than one motor. Likely the subi trans would break due to torque, but it's always cool to brainstorm.

Keep the work going, and certainly keep us in the loop.

Byron

Re: Electric roadster

Posted: 08 May 2014 07:29
by bertvorgon
I want to go for a ride in a small, light car with 420 ft/lbs of torque!!!!!

As I said before, an electric solo car would be awesome.

Very cool project Jeff.

Re: Electric roadster

Posted: 08 May 2014 12:10
by icehouse
I'm the same way Byron, It's super fun playing with combustion motors don't get me wrong, but I've been doing that since I was a kid, working on my mini bike with the lawn mower engine. Tinkering with electric on my brothers car was really fun. If only it was half way fast! I test drove a Nissan Leaf and it seemed pretty zippy. Can't imagine two of those engines!

Although I to enjoy shifting gears it doesn't feel right hooking an electric motor to a standard gas gear box. It doesn't have the right of throttle vs. RPM drop, like a gas engine. Or at least my bro's DC motor didn't. I'm sure a fine tuned AC engine could be programmed to. If Tesla's don't need a gear box and they are fast as hell I don't think I will. Also the leaf doesn't come with any sort of transmission either. My bro was actually over last week (works at Tesla) and said the Tesla motor/diff combo was about the same size as the Leaf one. It puts out over 400 hp and 400 fpt out of one motor hhmm can't wait till those are cheap!

Re: Electric roadster

Posted: 09 May 2014 16:46
by dcuplover