92 replies to this topic

[Anchoright]

I'm still waiting for my car to get back from the wrap guys. I think I'm driving them crazy because I come in every day to see what they're up to! They haven't started yet, too busy finishing their other projects - Bentleys, BMWs.. They say they will get mine done in the next couple days, as soon as the materials get in. 

[Anchoright]

It's back from the wrap! It has a few bubbles but apparently those go away after a few days. I'm going to take it back to the guys after I return from the track, so they can touch up the wrap job and get it perfect.

 

And I've put all the carbon fiber parts on from RogueSe7ens. Those carbon fiber parts came out really nice! 

 

I'm going to do a little more body work - wax the carbon parts, stripes on the bonnet, combination knob for the boot lid so I don't need keys. 

 

But first, tomorrow I'm taking it to Mincomp so they can get the alignment correct, and a few other things. 

 

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Edited by Anchoright, 06 October 2016 - 05:52 AM.

[Mini Manannán]

Beware of the Attack Turtles!

[Anchoright]

Well, Bill at Mincomp did a fantastic job of corner balancing and aligning the suspension. He also flushed the brake fluid and put racing brake fluid in. I drove it for a week and took it back to him yesterday to have it nut and bolted and a final check for track readiness. 

 

He gave me the all clear! I'm heading to Willow Springs later this week, to see what this thing can do!

[Anchoright]

Well, it performed really well at Willow Springs! I only used 1/3 of the battery, driving off and on all day. It was solid. Center of gravity was fine in spite of the batteries in the back seat. Spun the wheels in third. It wasn't going so fast on the straights - I don't know if it was the transmission, or if the batteries were heating up and not giving enough juice - I'll need to look into that. But for a daily driver street car, I think I've had a successful build. 

 

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[Black.Ghost]

While at work today I was thinking about an electric Mini and was linked here. What an awesome build! Seriously cool work. Any updates on how the car is performing 6 months on?

[monkey]

Wow just read through all this - amazing build! Nice work!

[Anchoright]

It's running great!! I've just been driving it. There's stuff I need to do, like for example I never put in a cigarette lighter outlet, and I need that to plug in the ice chest I'll be using for air conditioning in the summer. I also need to fix the hazard lights - right now when I need the hazard lights I just open the door (the keyless system blinks the hazards when the door is open). I just haven't had time to do these small things. 

However it's driving strong and zero problems. I've got about 3500 miles on the speedometer since the build and literally all I've done for maintenance is plug it in when the battery is low!

[Anchoright]

Love it, really nice conversion.

 

Your range at 110 miles is very good - exceeds the mainstream cars ... I had a fully electric Ford Focus for the weekend and could only get 55 miles out of that, was told if I went to a Renault ZOE I could expect about 70 miles - still not as good as yours.

 

Will you have problems with registering it as an electric car, maybe not as their seems to be many more suppliers and modders in the US than in Europe?

 

Range is actually 120 miles. Not half bad. However when I get past 100 miles and get down to 20% charge, I need to drive slowly and watch the ammeter that the voltage doesn't drop below 100V when I accelerate - otherwise the batteries begin to fry. 

If you look at youtube videos on running Teslas dry, you'll see that the car is programmed to drive really slow toward the end of the battery charge. That's the reason why. Since my car hasn't got the computer to do that I just have to do that manually by being careful myself. 

[DUF2]

Driving the car is different than a gas car. I think the way to describe it is that it is more natural.
I've had around 30 cars in my life and all except one was manual. In fact I converted two cars from automatic to manual. So I like stick shift.
Trogdor has a manual transmission and a clutch pedal, however it is driven differently than your average manual. A gas car has zero torque at zero rpm, and so you need to get it up to speed before engaging the gear. This is why we do what we do with the clutch, slowly letting it out as we slowly accelerate.
An electric car has 100% torque at zero rpm, so you don't need to use the clutch at all to get the car moving. You put it in gear, don't use the clutch at all, accelerate carefully and you begin to move.
Also the car starts from standstill in any gear. The motor is happiest when it is moving at full speed so the only reason you need the different gears is based on how fast you would ultimately like to go. For around town third gear is fine. I put it in third gear and forget about it. For the freeway fourth gear is fine. For highway fifth is fine. For a drag race (I haven't tried it but I think that) second gear would be good, and I'm not sure why you would ever need first. It just came with the transmission!
This is what I did with my shifter knob to reflect this:
image.jpeg
You would use the clutch only if you are already moving and decide you want to change gears, other than that you don't use the clutch.
I guess in a way you could picture it like having a giant electric drill under the bonnet. If you want the drill to turn fast you select a higher gear, if you want it to turn slow you select a lower gear, but the drill is happier if the trigger is pressed in all the way.
Now all this coupled with the fact that the car is pretty much silent really makes the car feel like "natural" driving. It really is quite an experience.

I still can't get my head around the need for a gearbox. I thought with the instant torque available and the way an electric motor revs that a gearbox was superfluous. The Leaf and the Tesla and other electric cars (as far as I'm aware) do not have gearboxes or clutches. I also was surprised when I found out that Formula E cars had gearboxes!

[johnR]

This is a great build - electric cars are without doubt the future (for now!)No doubt in a few years time you'll look at those batteries and laugh at the size of them like we do with the first mobile phones.

[nicklouse]

 

Driving the car is different than a gas car. I think the way to describe it is that it is more natural.
I've had around 30 cars in my life and all except one was manual. In fact I converted two cars from automatic to manual. So I like stick shift.
Trogdor has a manual transmission and a clutch pedal, however it is driven differently than your average manual. A gas car has zero torque at zero rpm, and so you need to get it up to speed before engaging the gear. This is why we do what we do with the clutch, slowly letting it out as we slowly accelerate.
An electric car has 100% torque at zero rpm, so you don't need to use the clutch at all to get the car moving. You put it in gear, don't use the clutch at all, accelerate carefully and you begin to move.
Also the car starts from standstill in any gear. The motor is happiest when it is moving at full speed so the only reason you need the different gears is based on how fast you would ultimately like to go. For around town third gear is fine. I put it in third gear and forget about it. For the freeway fourth gear is fine. For highway fifth is fine. For a drag race (I haven't tried it but I think that) second gear would be good, and I'm not sure why you would ever need first. It just came with the transmission!
This is what I did with my shifter knob to reflect this:
image.jpeg
You would use the clutch only if you are already moving and decide you want to change gears, other than that you don't use the clutch.
I guess in a way you could picture it like having a giant electric drill under the bonnet. If you want the drill to turn fast you select a higher gear, if you want it to turn slow you select a lower gear, but the drill is happier if the trigger is pressed in all the way.
Now all this coupled with the fact that the car is pretty much silent really makes the car feel like "natural" driving. It really is quite an experience.

I still can't get my head around the need for a gearbox. I thought with the instant torque available and the way an electric motor revs that a gearbox was superfluous. The Leaf and the Tesla and other electric cars (as far as I'm aware) do not have gearboxes or clutches. I also was surprised when I found out that Formula E cars had gearboxes!

 

he mentions the reason that a gearbox can be useful is that electric motors do have a sweet spot where they work best. the box here as i read it was more to do with select it for your expected speed and off you go. no changing of gear really needed.

[fuzzy-hair-man]

There are different behaviours between AC motors and DC motors, AC will typically have less torque over a wider rev range I think up to 12,000 or more when I last looked but probably more now. DC has more initial torque but it drops off quicker and can't hold the same revs, this uses a DC motor. AC can do native regenerative braking, DC most can't I think maybe brushless DC can. Tesla, Nissan Leaf etc basically all of the big electric car companies (not conversions) are using AC motors.
I remember a engineering explained YouTube video about why formula E uses a gearbox I just can't remember the reason, I think it was only 2 gears though.
Nope 3...
Here's the video :
https://youtu.be/36H9BVeMYMI

Edited by fuzzy-hair-man, 10 March 2018 - 12:48 AM.

[Anchoright]

Here’s a little update! Just rolled over 10,000 miles after the conversion. Everything was fine in the checkup I gave the car except the read KAD disk brakes. There were no pads left. Period! I’m surprised I didn’t notice it!
Anyway I decided to take the opportunity to switch back to drum brakes. The KAD disk brakes have been nothing but problems for me. First of all you have to torque them different than the standard rear wheels. Then because the electric car is silent, you hear the clickity-clack-clickity-clack of the pads rattling around back there as you drive. Then I gave up trying to adjust the hand brake every week so I have just been parking on flat surfaces for the last 10,000 miles!
I just went with the normal drums. After all, the batteries weigh a ton and those wheels are just drag-alongs anyway so it is very little difference (for me) to get anything lightweight back there.

[panky]

Fantastic build, most impressed. If the rear pads were completely worn away after a short time doesn't that mean they were working hard? Wouldn't going back to drums affect the braking efficiency? I know the rear brakes on a normal car don't do much but with all that weight in the boot on your car they must be doing a lot more.