Other than blowing your budget that sounds like a superb plan
Rate my build plan (c3 corvette)
5
Location: San francisco, CA
Budget: Like 15k for the donor car, and hopefully less than 20k for all the conversion parts and any labor costs.
Donor car: 1975 c3 corvette. They're cheap, easy to convert the bumpers back to the wonderful 68-72 chrome bumper design, and have some decent safety equipment upgrades over the early cars. A clean 1975 is like 15k, a clean 1970 is 25k or more, YIKES
also, maybe some race car flair to it, need big rear tires to hold all that torque eh?
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Motor: Tesla model S P85 large rear drive unit OR Tesla model 3 performance rear drive unit. The entire tesla rear subframe and all the suspension components, fabricating mounts so it bolts onto the c3 ladder frame. This could be relatively easy or the hardest, most expensive part of the entire project. The motor 3 motor is more efficient when not under heavy load, and FAR FAR better cooling capacity BUT nobody supports their firmware yet and it isn't clear how many years it'll be until the T-1C supports it.
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Battery: 34kw of chevy volt batteries. I'd like Gen2 but the Gen1s are half the price and only slightly lower capacity. Some in the engine bay with a battery enclosure to make it look like a V8 because yummy under hood candy, like ICON's derelict mercury EV did. the rest of the batteries go where the gas tank used to be, which may or may not hang lower and thus cause the full size spire tire sling to have to go away. Volt batteries have excellent high performance because of almost no voltage sag. They're also cheap, work very reliably, have a nice log-like form factor, and have built in excellent battery cooling. I'm hoping for 80+ miles of range
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Cooling: unsure yet, but the water pump and electrically controller diverter valve out of a tesla. chevy volt batteries and the tesla motors have built in cooling systems so no need to screw around making chill plates.
Controller: EV Controls T-1C, pretty close to turn-key, i'd buy it from EV west specifically so i can lean on them for tech support and general info. This controller's already been used in a few tesla motor/chevy volt battery builds
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Contactor: unsure
Power steering: I really want to keep hydraulic power steering, electric pump driven. It's wasteful but it feels so much better than electric power steering. EV West makes a belt fed pump but i'll probably re-use the one that came with the car.
A/C: MVP might omit this since i live in a SF and A/C is kinda unnecessary
Charger: Not sure how to get there, but i absolutely want to shoot for a 50kw charger which interfaces with CCS. With such a short range this feels like a heavy requirement for this to be driveable. There's some noises about CCS charging for DIY builds but this might be a wait and see, hopefully this becomes a mature thing soon (within a year). For 50kw, maybe just stack 5 of those 10kw tesla chargers...?
Safety: Haven't researched much but i would really like switchable fuses between every 72 volts or so, so at any given moment during assembly or maintenance, if i make an oopsie, i only get shocked with 72v before a fuse cuts it. Also, inertial fuses so in a crash, everything is isolated from everything else. Also, a first responder safety line, mimicking tesla's implementation with a BRIGHT RED WIRE right under the hood with a really obvious label on it.
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Timeline: purchase the c3 within a few months, spend about a year maintaining it, adding quality of life upgrades, more deeply researching the platform, more deeply researching the feasibility of my componentry and fabrication. HOPEFULLY buy most of the drivetrain bits in advance and make sure the entire thing works on a bench, THEN start converting in fall of 2020 and be done some point before fall of 2021
So, what am i missing, what bad assumptions or assessments am i making, etc
Budget: Like 15k for the donor car, and hopefully less than 20k for all the conversion parts and any labor costs.
Donor car: 1975 c3 corvette. They're cheap, easy to convert the bumpers back to the wonderful 68-72 chrome bumper design, and have some decent safety equipment upgrades over the early cars. A clean 1975 is like 15k, a clean 1970 is 25k or more, YIKES
also, maybe some race car flair to it, need big rear tires to hold all that torque eh?
Motor: Tesla model S P85 large rear drive unit OR Tesla model 3 performance rear drive unit. The entire tesla rear subframe and all the suspension components, fabricating mounts so it bolts onto the c3 ladder frame. This could be relatively easy or the hardest, most expensive part of the entire project. The motor 3 motor is more efficient when not under heavy load, and FAR FAR better cooling capacity BUT nobody supports their firmware yet and it isn't clear how many years it'll be until the T-1C supports it.
Battery: 34kw of chevy volt batteries. I'd like Gen2 but the Gen1s are half the price and only slightly lower capacity. Some in the engine bay with a battery enclosure to make it look like a V8 because yummy under hood candy, like ICON's derelict mercury EV did. the rest of the batteries go where the gas tank used to be, which may or may not hang lower and thus cause the full size spire tire sling to have to go away. Volt batteries have excellent high performance because of almost no voltage sag. They're also cheap, work very reliably, have a nice log-like form factor, and have built in excellent battery cooling. I'm hoping for 80+ miles of range
Cooling: unsure yet, but the water pump and electrically controller diverter valve out of a tesla. chevy volt batteries and the tesla motors have built in cooling systems so no need to screw around making chill plates.
Controller: EV Controls T-1C, pretty close to turn-key, i'd buy it from EV west specifically so i can lean on them for tech support and general info. This controller's already been used in a few tesla motor/chevy volt battery builds
Contactor: unsure
Power steering: I really want to keep hydraulic power steering, electric pump driven. It's wasteful but it feels so much better than electric power steering. EV West makes a belt fed pump but i'll probably re-use the one that came with the car.
A/C: MVP might omit this since i live in a SF and A/C is kinda unnecessary
Charger: Not sure how to get there, but i absolutely want to shoot for a 50kw charger which interfaces with CCS. With such a short range this feels like a heavy requirement for this to be driveable. There's some noises about CCS charging for DIY builds but this might be a wait and see, hopefully this becomes a mature thing soon (within a year). For 50kw, maybe just stack 5 of those 10kw tesla chargers...?
Safety: Haven't researched much but i would really like switchable fuses between every 72 volts or so, so at any given moment during assembly or maintenance, if i make an oopsie, i only get shocked with 72v before a fuse cuts it. Also, inertial fuses so in a crash, everything is isolated from everything else. Also, a first responder safety line, mimicking tesla's implementation with a BRIGHT RED WIRE right under the hood with a really obvious label on it.
Timeline: purchase the c3 within a few months, spend about a year maintaining it, adding quality of life upgrades, more deeply researching the platform, more deeply researching the feasibility of my componentry and fabrication. HOPEFULLY buy most of the drivetrain bits in advance and make sure the entire thing works on a bench, THEN start converting in fall of 2020 and be done some point before fall of 2021
So, what am i missing, what bad assumptions or assessments am i making, etc
1 - 20 of 81 Posts
2
i actually get a little lucky with this, the gas tank sits on top of the frame rails and the motor will be entirely under the rails, in a similar location to the stock diff although hanging out the back more
also, i did some rather rough fitment approximation using a c3 frame cad file i found somewhere, and a model s subframe i found somewhere else
the orange shaft is where i think the center of the axels are when the car's sitting on the ground
correct, they will have liquid cooling in the car
but if you separate out the modules, they do not have liquid cooling built into them. the Volt and tesla packs have cooling chill plates essentially baked into their form factor
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see, this chevy Bolt battery pack disassembly video, the chill plate is designed to fit in that big pack but it doesn't split apart into smaller chill plates
https://youtu.be/ssU2mjiNi_Q?t=5348
the battery modules themselves:
https://youtu.be/ssU2mjiNi_Q?t=4058
so, if you want cooling, you'll have to make your own chill plates :/
but if you separate out the modules, they do not have liquid cooling built into them. the Volt and tesla packs have cooling chill plates essentially baked into their form factor
see, this chevy Bolt battery pack disassembly video, the chill plate is designed to fit in that big pack but it doesn't split apart into smaller chill plates
https://youtu.be/ssU2mjiNi_Q?t=5348
the battery modules themselves:
https://youtu.be/ssU2mjiNi_Q?t=4058
so, if you want cooling, you'll have to make your own chill plates :/
1 - 20 of 81 Posts
