I’m interested in and committed to converting a conventional car to electric, but I really know very little about cars or electrical engineering.
Here’s what I have done so far (most still makes no sense to me):
Read Bob Brant’s book, “How to Build an Electric Car”
Sought help from my local EAA
Used online EV calculators
Researched a bunch of motors, controllers, batteries, etc.
Visited the Austin EAA photo album and looked at others’ EVs
I’m looking for specifics if anyone has them.
Could anyone give me recommendations of parts or other info to refit a sedan with a manual ****** and a curb weight of 2100-2300 lbs that could get me roughly 75 mph top speed and maybe 60 miles per charge with a budget under $15k?
Thanks!
Asked by:random
WOW, you’re asking a lot from a conventional car. Not that it can’t be done but your going to have to shed a lot of weight. You never mentioned what kind of car you want to work with. If it doesn’t matter then I think the best car to start with would be a Geo Metro. They weigh in at a whopping 1800 lbs, and are pretty easy to work with. Lots of parts available, and they are a dime a dozen. You should be able to fit some battery racks in there for your Power source as well as modify the engine bay to accommodate the Electric motor. Now you have done a lot more research on the motors and what not to make it go so I can’t give you much advice on that. But what I can advise you on is to make sure that you remove anything from the car that you will no longer need. All of the engine and engine electrical. The fuel tank and fuel lines, the cooling system, if it has it the AC, the exhaust system, and if you are unable to make it mate up to the motor the transmission and drive lines. Everything else you will need. I know some of the metros had a mechanical breaking system so you may want to find one of these. Other wise you will need to rig up a vacuum pump to operate the vacuum booster for the breaking system. You may also need a voltage regulator to help regulate the interior lights and exterior lights. Other wise you might pop the bulbs with the voltage that will come from all the extra batteries. This should give you a good start I would love to see how this project comes together and I hope you will take lots of pictures and start a web site about it. If you do please E-mail me the site link so I can track it. It sounds like an awesome project and seems like it would be an awesome learning experience to do it. Hope all works out well.
save up a few more dollars and buy a hybred
If you’re not absolutely confident about doing this project yourself, I would suggest visiting a professional EV converter. There are links to some of them on this page:
*
*
You could have some or most of the work done for you, and still fall within your budget. At the very least, you will get help with some of the more difficult parts.
To hold your cost down, why not work with old electric golf carts as a parts sorce in trying to make this conversion.
to save money go to your local salvage yard you can get tons of batteries for cheap or if youre lucky you can find a couple of trashed hybrids and get the batteries and major componets cheaply cos most scrap owners dont know what their selling
That’s a handful to achieve. Did you read his book or look at it? Go back and study it. Know it. It may be possible but it is going to take a huge amount of education to achieve.
The battery weight is going to limit either performance or length of travel.
Join a group such as our Yahoo group
and learn from those that are building/driving them.
You have to start the project to see if your calculations are correct. Do not be surprised if it costs more than you expect. All auto projects tend to let alone EV related ones.