Honda Act-E Kei Van Build

The 9" brushed DC motor is certainly not too powerful - when used in a forklift, it's no fire-breathing monster, and is weaker than the van's stock engine. It can be powerful enough if run much harder than it is in a forklift, but it doesn't have to be. The size of the motor is a bigger issue; yes, they're stupidly large.

Kei vehicles have little engines. That looks like a pre-1996 Acty, so likely 28 kW at 5,300 rpm and 54 N⋅m of torque at 4,500 rpm from a carbureted 656 cc engine. They were never intended for highway use, but that was enough power for the way they were actually driven, so if that is enough for you then the same from an electric motor should be enough, too.

The AC-35 at 96 V can only produce more power than the stock engine briefly, due to overheating, so it's unlikely to be an acceptable replacement for highway use, but for short periods it is substantially more powerful than the gas engine.

Paower said:

Hello all,

Been working for the past few months on converting this Honda Acty kei van. A few months ago I bought a Netgain Warp 9 (before I received the van) planning on using the Warp 9. I've since received the van and torn it apart. After getting it all torn apart I'm confronting a concern that I've had since I bought the Warp 9, which is that this thing is not only physically too big, but may also be overkill for the stock drivetrain.

The van is 4WD rear/mid-engined.

So, I've been exploring the idea of using a smaller AC motor, most likely the AC-35 at 96V.

Now I'm wondering if that'll be underpowered for what I'm looking to do with the van, hauling surfboards, some mild offroading and zipping around town. Sometimes going on the freeway.

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I would take a look at the mitishibish outlander hybrid, it has 3 motors (one in the rear, two in the front(one is used as a generator))
One of them would be perfect for this build, potentially one of the front motors.
Can control over the inverters and the onboard charger has been figured out too. SimpBMS also supports the batteries from it as well

There are a lot of motors which could possibly work. If you're interested in the motors from the Outlander PHEV, this thread gets into details:

The rear motor (Meriden Y61) would be a more suitable choice, because the acceptable speed ranges of that motor and the transmission would be a better match than the physically smaller front motor (Meriden S61), but with the gear ratio choices offered by the transmission the front motor might work fine.

The motor from the Mitsubishi i-MiEV is similar (to the Outlander rear) but rated for less power, and might also be suitable... Mitsubishi used it in an electric kei truck.

I've decided to stick with the 9" and go with a clutch-less setup. Thanks everybody for the input!

Hey there! I'm starting an Acty conversion myself, and I was curious if you could share an update on your progress so far. Would love to see what our first steps might be!

Also, you say that the Warp 9 motor was too big for the Acty. What made it too big? Would going clutchless make it fit?

Acty DCty said:

Also, you say that the Warp 9 motor was too big for the Acty. What made it too big? Would going clutchless make it fit?

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Hey! How's it going. Sorry it's been so long and there hasn't been an update.

I've finally got my 5 Tesla modules, and got rid of the old Netgain Warp 9. Even if you went clutchless I wouldn't recommend that motor for the Acty, it would still be a clearance issue. I tried every which way to get it to fit but it was always too big.

I've now decided to go with the Hyper 9 which is a few inches smaller and will be a lot lighter and more manageable, although it does make the build a bit more complicated.

Is there any update ?