Working on a 1989 Classic Mini EV Conversion

12552 Views 80 Replies 10 Participants Last post by scottherrington, Nov 11, 2020

Scanales

Discussion Starter · May 12, 2020

Hello Everyone,

Starting work on my 1989 Mini. Thinking of keeping the original gearbox and mounting a Hyper9 motor directly on top of it. Using SilentSync sprockets and belt as a drive system. Have something similar to bdrive.ch ´s conversion in mind. But interested in using the Hyper9 9 and some Tesla modules from the get go.

Also considering the EV Europe system: https://eveurope.eu/en/product/ev-hype-kit-low-voltage-max-90-kwatt-180-vdc/

I have no advance knowledge in EV conversions so I want to keep everything as simple as possible for this one.

Interested in getting some feedback from you guys who are the experts. Let me know your thoughts.

Am I in the right path or is this combo I have in mind a not so good Idea.

Cheers

21 - 40 of 81 Posts

schelle63

· #21 · Jun 14, 2020

Hi,
I installed the entire drivetrain (motor, reduction gear/diff). During the mechanic installation I learned that Caspar Hille from Norway (he has posted a thread here...) had done the same thing already some years ago! He could give me some highly appreciated hints, fortunately. What a nice project!
Motor/gearbox-assembly fits nearly perfectly into the Mini-Subframe, there is only one area (front, RH) to be cleared. It was much easier than to install a LEAF-drivetrain, as You do.
I could keep the original controller (both motor and controller are from Siemens). With a 486-computer (!), the right software, the Siemens-manual and a OBD-to-RS232-adaptor (all this appeared harder to find than the donor car itself), all parameters can be tuned.
Currently I am converting my second Mini, some information (also little from the first one) can be found here:
https://www.goingelectric.de/forum/viewtopic.php?f=41&t=55942
https://www.mini-forum.de/threads/94412-Mini-mit-Elektroantrieb
Have a great day!
Markus

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Tremelune

· #22 · Jun 14, 2020

Nice! I wish those cars were sold in the States.

Maybe if I get real crazy, I can try and put a Think motor in the front, and put my Leaf motor in the rear with this cage:

https://www.instagram.com/p/CBaVY7kIhl_/

brian_

· #23 · Jun 15, 2020 (Edited)

schelle63 said:
I have converted my Mini with a 27kW-powertrain (from a Th!nk as donor car). With these 27kW I can make the front wheels spin at any time I want (sometime I fail to avoid it) from zero to approx. 60km/h. Top speed is 105km/h, because I have limited the max. rpm of the motor (AC, asynchroneous) to 10.000 1/min. Some people tell the motor can do 12.000 1/min, maybe I will try this some day. The car makes a lot of fun!

To me it appears not reasonable to install a 80kW-engine into a 680kg-Mini with a front-wheel-drive. It might make sense if you build a RWD- or AWD-car, or if you want a top speed far beyond 180km/h.

Does the Th!nk have, by coincidence, a 27 kWh battery and a 27 kW motor? The specs that I have seen show a 27 kWh battery and a 34 kW motor.
Although 80 kW is more than enough for a Mini, an EV converted Mini will be heavier than the original version, and it's not unreasonable compared to higher-performance modern vehicles.

Many years ago, when Ford put a then-unprecedented 220 horsepower engine in the front-wheel-drive Taurus, discussion broadly concluded that about 200 hp per ton of gross vehicle weight was manageable with front wheel drive. 200 hp is 150 kW, and the converted Mini will weigh about a ton, so with 80 kW it's way short of being unmanageable. It is, of course, both more powerful than an original Mini and more powerful than necessary to be enjoyable.

schelle63

· #24 · Jun 15, 2020

Tremelune said:
Nice! I wish those cars were sold in the States.

Surprisingly, the Th!nk was built in the USA! At that time they belonged to the Ford group. Some years later when the car manufacturers made the EVs disappear, many Th!nks (440 ea?) were saved by bringing them outside (mainly to Europe).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Who_Killed_the_Electric_Car?

I was also considering a AWD, in fact there is a Audi-TT rear axle in my garage, waiting to be fitted into a Mini some day...

Brian, I do not remember the Th!nk's battery specification. I have the drivetrain from the early A266. The later type was the A306, with more power and various battery technologies. This explains different figures concerning power and capacity.

An electric vehicle does not need to be heavier than a ICE-powered car: my Mini is 660kg, while original specification was 680kg. My battery has nominal 16kWh (90kg) which gives me a range of about 100km. I have a set of battery-cases that give me additional 50% range, when I need it (this happened once in the last 12 months).

Have a nice day!
Markus

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schelle63

· #25 · Jun 15, 2020

Coming back to the topic of this thread, which is Scanales' request for information:
I highly recommend to skip the Mini's gearbox - it is a heavy monster!
Just had a closer look to that motor-diff-assembly from Swind, a nice composition. It is my impression, however, that the diff.-housing has a great diameter and requires a lot of space, which is missing in the Mini. Would be interesting to see in detail how they install this into the Mini-Subframe. After all, the specifications of their Mini are pretty good. Maybe "pickmeup" made some photograph?

Besides, there is also this company in France:
https://www.ian-motion.com/
and this one in the Netherlands:
http://www.electricmini.nl/

Regards,
Markus

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pickmeup

· #26 · Jun 15, 2020

i have seen some other information about the swind e motor and they do have to cut into the rear of the subframe and there is some extra brackets required for mounting points.

the only photo ive seen on the internet with the motor in the subframe is this one below.

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Scanales

Discussion Starter · #27 · Jun 16, 2020

Thanks for the photo! @Pickmeup That’s the first time I come across the assembly.

I’m in the process of clearing out the engine bay and removing the ICE components. I do really like what they are doing at SWINDON but pretty much still open for other solutions. I think their own experimental mini is a clear example of what can be done with that 80Kw - it could clearly be used for something a bit bigger and heavier....

Being in México, using a donor car for the motor and parts is quite tricky since there’s not many of them in the market. I have also come to the conclusion that if I’m doing this conversion I might as well get rid of the old rusty parts that may limit me or give me trouble in the future (Gearbox). So I’m in between mounting a Hyper9 with a new subframe and a more modern gearbox or using the Swindon tech.

Pretty much a newbie to EV technical stuff here so I really appreciate all of the info you guys have given me and all of the useful insights I can find in other threads.

I will be updating you with progress and decisions I make.

Cheers

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Scanales

Discussion Starter · #28 · Jun 30, 2020

2

OK, so if I’m going with the Swindon HPD E POWERTRAIN I have a couple of options and I would really appreciate your thoughts on both topics:

1) MCU: 144V Curtis 1239 or RINEHART 400V PM100DX.

Judging from the photo they went with the PM100DX with their own Mini.

2) To include or not a Limited Slip Diff?

Meanwhile I have stripped the mini to its shell, needs some bodywork done and it will then be sent to the paint shop.

Cheers

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pickmeup

· #29 · Jun 30, 2020

what will you be using the mini for? if you are going to go for track use then an LSD will help. Otherwise its not really required.

Reactions: 1

Scanales

Discussion Starter · #30 · Jun 30, 2020

I’m aiming for a daily city driver which I can occasionally use to drive to a weekend spot 100 miles away, charge overnight and drive back. 80 mph is the objective top speed. Will be making some changes to the mechanical side to make it a more comfortable daily, need the components to be reliable and provide the speed and performance needed for the short weekend trips. Thought the LSD could help with axle shaft/tire wear and help with traction on the “High speed” highway weekend trips.

brian_

· #31 · Jul 1, 2020

pickmeup said:
what will you be using the mini for? if you are going to go for track use then an LSD will help. Otherwise its not really required.

I agree, basically - if it is not used for aggressive driving (track or not), limited-slip is not necessary. It's not even desirable, since any mechanical LSD inherently applies too much torque to the tire on the inside of a turn and fights the desired turn. This is true even with rear wheel drive, but an LSD is particularly undesirable with front wheel drive, which is one reason that LSDs are much less commonly used in the front.

Scanales said:
I’m aiming for a daily city driver which I can occasionally use to drive to a weekend spot 100 miles away, charge overnight and drive back. 80 mph is the objective top speed. Will be making some changes to the mechanical side to make it a more comfortable daily, need the components to be reliable and provide the speed and performance needed for the short weekend trips. Thought the LSD could help with axle shaft/tire wear and help with traction on the “High speed” highway weekend trips.

None of that suggests a need for LSD. It certainly won't help with wear of anything, unless your idea of highway driving involves spinning the tires.

Reactions: 1

brian_

· #32 · Jul 1, 2020

Scanales said:
OK, so if I’m going with the Swindon HPD E POWERTRAIN I have a couple of options and I would really appreciate your thoughts on both topics:

1) MCU: 144V Curtis 1239 or RINEHART 400V PM100DX.

With the same motor? It seems unlikely that a motor which is suitable for 400 volts would provide decent performance over a wide speed range with only 144 volts. The torque (and power) curves on the product web page confirm this - I can't think of any vehicle for this which this powertrain would be useful with the 144 volt configuration.

Of course, to get anything like the published 400 volt performance, you need close to that battery voltage.

Reactions: 1

Scanales

Discussion Starter · #33 · Jul 2, 2020

Thanks @brian_ and @pickmeup for the info.

It’s the same 80kW motor. I will be going for the RINEHART 400V and no LSD. Battery wise I have 5 X Tesla Module 24V 250Ah 5.2 kWh in mind. Starting to draft different options on how to fit all of these in the mini.

CHEERS

brian_

· #34 · Jul 2, 2020

Scanales said:
Thanks @brian_ and @pickmeup for the info.

It’s the same 80kW motor. I will be going for the RINEHART 400V and no LSD. Battery wise I have 5 X Tesla Module 24V 250Ah 5.2 kWh in mind.

That makes sense, except that regardless of the inverter you still won't have enough voltage available, because of the battery choice. The controller/inverter does not step up voltage (except in the rare case of some Toyota hybrid vehicle controllers that have a voltage doubler ahead of the inverter stage), so what you can get to the motor is limited by what comes out of the battery. Performance will be worse than shown for 144 V, because voltage is even lower.

This assumes that you are not modifying the Tesla modules. Converting them to 12S and using 10 would give you about 225 V (nominal)... still not enough for best performance, but maybe okay.

Note: the Tesla modules have a nominal voltage of about 22.5 V (so 5 modules would be 113 V), with actual module voltage varying from as low as perhaps 18 V to as high as 25 V or so at full charge. People who think everything in DC power must be a multiple of 12 volts tend to round this up to 24 volts, but these are not lead-acid cells so nominal voltages are not a multiple of 2.

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Scanales

Discussion Starter · #35 · Jul 2, 2020

Yes! I’m aware of this problem. I’ve been reading on this modification to the tesla modules, however it seems to be to much input and just half the solution.

Any other suggestions for this issue?

Scanales

Discussion Starter · #36 · Jul 2, 2020

Scanales said:
Yes! I’m aware of this problem. I’ve been reading on this modification to the tesla modules, however it seems to be to much input and just half the solution.

Any other suggestions for this issue?

These are 60V but fitting 8 of them in the mini seems tough. The form factor in the tesla modules seem more favorable.

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brian_

· #37 · Jul 2, 2020

Scanales said:
I've been reading on this modification to the tesla modules, however it seems to be to much input and just half the solution.

Any other suggestions for this issue?

Different modules.

The ~60 V example is presumably the 16S LG Chem module designed for the Chrysler Pacifica Hybrid, and sold by various EV conversion companies. You would only need six for 360 V nominal; that would peak at close to the 400V inverter limit at full charge, but only give you about 16 kWh. That is typical plug-in hybrid rather than EV capacity, but might be enough for the Mini. If you can't fit in six of those, I don't know how you fit in five of the Tesla Model S/X modules (since the LG modules are only 3/4 of the volume of the Tesla modules, and the longest dimension is not much more than half as long), but what fits in is to some extent a matter of how the rigid dimensions of the modules go with dimensions of the available spaces.

Scanales

Discussion Starter · #38 · Jul 3, 2020

brian_ said:
Different modules.

The ~60 V example is presumably the 16S LG Chem module designed for the Chrysler Pacifica Hybrid, and sold by various EV conversion companies. You would only need six for 360 V nominal; that would peak at close to the 400V inverter limit at full charge, but only give you about 16 kWh. That is typical plug-in hybrid rather than EV capacity, but might be enough for the Mini. If you can't fit in six of those, I don't know how you fit in five of the Tesla Model S/X modules (since the LG modules are only 3/4 of the volume of the Tesla modules, and the longest dimension is not much more than half as long), but what fits in is to some extent a matter of how the rigid dimensions of the modules go with dimensions of the available spaces.

Yup, thats it. 6 I could fit. Ideally I want 20kWh for the mini. I can do some fitting and weight distribution exercises with this info

Tremelune

· #39 · Jul 3, 2020

If you want higher voltage, the cost is money, weight, and space. There's no great way to get high voltage with less weight...Prius and Tesla/Smart battery packs have high voltage per pound/liter, but the former lacks range and the latter costs a lot. Well, arguably. You can buy a Smart Fortwo ED in good condition for about $5k, netting you about 18kW and 350V in a ~300-pound pack.

If I were you I'd try and put half the modules up the middle above the exhaust tunnel, and half under the rear seat (this is what Swindon does)...and just...add more...

My car just has 30 Leaf modules sitting on the rear seat. Weight distribution is looking like it will be between 50/50 and 55/45 front/rear, and total weight is maybe 200-300 pounds up from stock. Considering this car was (somewhat) designed to have rear passengers, I think you'd be good if you're willing to lose those seats. Might still be good by putting aTesla module or two between the front seats and one or two in the boot.

Reactions: 1

brian_

· #40 · Jul 3, 2020

Tremelune said:
Might still be good by putting a Tesla module or two between the front seats and one or two in the boot.

A Tesla Model S/X module is 302 mm (one foot) wide, so standing on edge it would be 302 mm tall, plus the housing. Would you really put that between the front seats? Two of them would be 160 mm thick, plus the housing - that's a lot to go between Mini seats, too.

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