Electric Vehicle Conversion - 96 Toyota Tercel to 144v Plug-in Electric Car

Igor, fetch us a new brain! Er, heart?... whatever!

Now the fun part. Trying to figure out what type of motor to use to replace the existing engine. The original engine was a 105 horsepower 1.5 liter. After reading up on the differences between measuring gas vs. electric motors and a lot of head scratching we narrowed our choices between the NetGain trans-warp line of motors and the Advanced D.C. motors. After considering the cost and availablilty we went with the Advanced D.C. Motors model FB1-001, 9.1 inch diameter, running 19.5 horsepower, with inputs between 74-144v single shaft. The single shaft worked out very well (double-shaft means that there are parts that stick out either end and the second shaft would be good to run auxiliary power items off of it) but givent the space and our acceptance that air-conditioning isn't the smartest thing when you have to limit your ride to 50 miles or start pushing. Now that we chose a motor that would fit, the next step was connecting it to the existing transmission.

Transmission bell

Again, here is where it helps to have someone with machining experience in the family. Using the original gasket for the transmission, and quadruple checking that we had it oriented correctly. Tom traced out the transmission outline. Then here is the difference between an engineer and a machinist, he quickly "filled in" all of the cuts and the lines that would cost an arm-and-a-leg to get 'exactly right' and smoothed out a lot of the shape to simplify the outline dramatically. Using calipers and measuring again and again, we laid out the various waypoints on the adapter and gave what we thought would be enough room for the various parts. The biggest concern was the CV rods have a huge bell on the end that fits into the transmission so we had to allow enough room for the adapter to hold onto the bell but still not ram into the rods. We were fortunate to have a machinist cut it and get the holes and counterbore (very good work by the way and I will have to get his release to post his information here) and when we got the adapter back everything fit perfectly!

Well until we started bolting things together. The axles came too close to the adapter and one of the alignment holes didn't quite line up correctly. In general, for a first run prototype though when to aligned the flywheel the adjustment pin dropped in perfectly so even though there was a little grinding to do, the concept was sound. If I get a chance I will try to digitize the schematic that we used. As a note of caution, it is the protosketches so there were a few lines that we had to manually adjust.

We were able to use the existing motor mounts for the transmission bell and Tom fashioned the third mount for the base of the motor. We wound up placing and pulling the motor several times so again, an engine hoist is a good friend. Here is a picture of the early positioning of the motor. We wrapped the cage with painters tape to make sure we didn't drop anything into the brushes and that proved to be a very important move. We had to do drilling of the frame to make sure that the motor and battery racks would align correctly. Without the tape, we would have placed a lot of metal shavings into the motor windings.

Here is the motor from a different angle. The metal flange on the front part of the motor and on the transmission is the lifting points for the chain on the engine hoist. If you look in the back, you can see the tube on the power steering. It was a good assumption by Tom that we could bypass the power steering unit and just go manual. All things considered, it isn't a 'one finger' steering, but it is a heck of a lot easier to steer than a 72 Chevy Pickup and it saves a lot of complexity and pump design.

One of the items that we did was go down the tailpipe and cut out the exhaust system. Again, the friendly recriprocating saw is a good friend when trying to tear out the pipe. What turned out to be a boon was that we were able to run the conduit down the pipe and use the old heat shielding as a wrap around the power lines. Here is a different view of the motor in place without the tailpipe. The red in the picture is the hydraulic jack (another friend when trying to set the motor in place).