Locost EV conversion log

Hi everyone,

I am still in the early planning stages here, but I thought I may as well start a thread to document some of what I'm working on/planning, both for information and feedback.

The car:
-Lotus 7 replica (AKA 'Locost'), built by myself to original book dimensions.
-Currently powered by a 2004 Yamaha R1 motorcycle engine.
-Current weight is about 1200 lbs without driver and half a tank of gas
-Primary use is Autocross, though it is street legal

Goals:
-Safe and well-built EV conversion
-Torque at low speeds but still possible to cruise on the freeway
-Keep reasonably close to the same weight
-Range isn't a huge concern but 30 miles or so would be nice
-Keep costs under $10k CAD?

Here's a photo from last season:



So the car is obviously a front engine RWD layout (I guess, technically the engine is 'mid' since no part of it is forward of the front axle). The rear axle is a narrowed Ford 7.5" out of a Ranger. From what I can tell, it looks like I can get up to a 4.56 gearset for it. It is currently geared to 3.45, which means the engine is running at 6-7000 rpm on the highway (not good) and still doesn't have as much low end torque as I would like. Also, due to the open intake and limited space for a muffler, I am constantly within a decibel or so of going over the noise limit when I get near redline at WOT. The car will do over 60 MPH in first gear, so I rarely even hit second on the courses we typically run here.

Since I will be left without a transmission after the bike engine is out, and to keep weight down, I am planning to go directly from motor to axle with a two-piece driveshaft. I thought long and hard about a DC motor, but decided against it due to a few reasons, including choice of controllers and availability of suitable motors locally.

So I am looking at either a Leaf motor or a Hyper 9. It would be nice to use a Leaf motor for the lower cost, and bonus if I can get the charger to work with whatever batteries I choose. Right now I can't seem to find much info on using the charger, and even less info on using it with a different battery voltage.

And speaking of batteries, I'm leaning towards second gen Chevy Volt. It looks like I could fit four modules in the car - two under the hood and two in the back where the gas tank is now. The Volt battery comes with three 16s modules and four 12s modules, so I can think of two possibilities:
1. Use two of each module size to get 28s2p (actually 4p since each module is internally 2p) (Good for Hyper 9)
2. Use all three 16s modules plus one 12s in series for 60s (Leaf motor would need at least this much voltage)

Since I designed all the suspension and everything except for the basic layout of the 'book chassis', I already had a CAD model to start with. Here's what it looks like with the Hyper 9 and a Spicer PTO u-joint adapter:


And finally, some of my comparisons. I had to go and wrap my head around how synchronous motors work, so hopefully this is right. I would really appreciate some feedback on this! To get the Leaf numbers, I first took the commonly available graph for the 80kW motor and scaled it up to 110kW at the same RPM. I then scaled the RPM for a given torque value, based on going from 360v to 240v.


If I did that all correct, it looks like the Leaf motor would give me better torque up to about 40 mph and then the Hyper 9 takes over. The MPH line assumes 4.56 gears. On one hand, I like the added low end power, but on the other hand, power is only useful if you can put it to the ground. Maybe as a next step, I should make another graph that compares wheel torque instead of driveshaft torque, and play around with different combinations of motors and rear end gears.

And that's about where I am at now. Any input is appreciated. My timeline for buying parts is basically most of the summer, then once this season is over I plan to tear the car down and start the conversion as a winter project.

Cheers!