Z3 EV Conversion

[DaveP]

Thanks for this thread. Especially costs details. For the untrained eye it gives the impression that ev is still not a budget option (in initial set up charges) but time will tell.

I still believe this to be the future. Has to be more commercially viable tho. My car is less than £10k and putting an ev conversion in it wont up that value

Now if i had a £100k 911 it would be a diff story

Keep up the bloody interesting thread

Dave

 

[Andybpowell]

Just to ensure the information in this thread is complete this is the dc to dc converter I will be using

this will provide 12v dc for the ancillaries from the High Voltage battery, also shown is the HV cable I will be using
and this is the charger which was originally fitted to a Volvo it's an eltek 3000 HE 3kw charger

and finally this is the Bosch water pump that I will be using for cooling the motor, inverter and charger.

 

[Andybpowell]

So I've had a busy few days making templates and a mock up adapter plate

this is the mock up fitted

Then while I was taking this picture the expensive chunk of ally plate for the real thing arrived , perfect timing.

I then marked this up using the template

once the marked holes were drilled and tapped i used another template to overlay the outline of the plate

then spent several hours cutting it out

after a bit of cleaning up it looked like this

and here it is attached to the gearbox and motor adapter

hopefully i can get it bolted to the motor tomorrow to measure up for the motor mounts.

 

[Mint]

Brilliant project, love these type of threads

 

[Andybpowell]

the test fitting of the motor went pretty well today the biggest issue was doing it on my own as I have a sloping drive

so now it's in I can make up the motor mounts then on to the front battery box

but wont happen this weekend as I have to replace 5 fence panels and paint 18 oh and re place all of the border edging I like the way she say's can we just (we meaning me) never mind I'll get back to the Z Monday, Hopefully and bloody hell has the price of timber gone up just cost me £1000 for 5 fence panels and an admittedly huge stack of railway sleepers

 

[Tom Cheesewright]

Brilliant! Looking really good. Very jealous of your milling machine.

Leaf stack is a brilliant choice. That thing is going to fly!

 

[Andybpowell]

Brilliant! Looking really good. Very jealous of your milling machine.

Leaf stack is a brilliant choice. That thing is going to fly!

Yea the mill is very useful has had lots of use over many projects wish I had a bigger one, but we all say that the mill was about £2000 and converting to CNC about another £1000 and a lot of hours doing it but I'd be lost without it now.
The leaf stack was a choice I made when I was going to convert my BMW Mini Cooper S as I originally couldn't find a Z3 to convert but I'm glad I found one in the end.

 

[Andybpowell]

Just seen @Tom Cheesewright update on his EV conversion on Youtube Surprised it's not faster to be honest hopefully he'll see some decent improvements with the new motor upgrade
my Z3 leaf conversion weighed 1400Kg originally and hopefully will weigh the same when I'm finished which is pretty much the same as the leaf so hopefully I can achieve similar performance to the leaf

The EM57 motor I have did 0-60 Mph between 6.7 - 11 seconds producing between 107 - 215 Bhp and between 250 - 340 N-m of Torque in it's various guises

my 2000cc Z3 produced 148 Bhp and 190 N-m of Torque when new and did 0-60 in about 8.5 seconds

If I can match the performance of the original 2000cc M52 I'll be happy (well for now).

In other news I have been machining the original Leaf Charger/DC to DC converter lower housing to take my Volvo Eltek charger the reason for doing this is so that I can make use of the original leaf's water cooling system to cool the charger

The machining for this is now complete and again I'm stuck waiting for material to arrive specifically the aluminium sheet and plate for the front battery box

 

[Tom Cheesewright]

Can you 'overclock' the leaf motor with the stock inverter?

I suspect you'll fine performance more than adequate though!

 

[Andybpowell]

Can you 'overclock' the leaf motor with the stock inverter?

I suspect you'll fine performance more than adequate though!

looking at the open inverter forum there seems to be quite a bit of tuning potential
and as for finding the performance adequate I'm less certain my last 5 cars were a Supercharged Mini cooper S, Supercharged C class Merc, a 370Z, a 350Z with Jenvey ITB's and before that an MR2 GT Turbo with Nitros so I have some concerns about it ending up with a Tesla large drive unit or something silly

 

[Brian James]

Holey moley what a project ...absolutely fascinating and what a challenge for the likes of me ! ...altougth this is way beyond my talents.
Watching with GREAT inerest for the final outcome Well done!!!!

 

[Tom Cheesewright]

looking at the open inverter forum there seems to be quite a bit of tuning potential
and as for finding the performance adequate I'm less certain my last 5 cars were a Supercharged Mini cooper S, Supercharged C class Merc, a 370Z, a 350Z with Jenvey ITB's and before that an MR2 GT Turbo with Nitros so I have some concerns about it ending up with a Tesla large drive unit or something silly

OK that's quite the list! I fear we may be heading to Tesla territory!

 

[Duncodin]

Thanks for this thread. Especially costs details. For the untrained eye it gives the impression that ev is still not a budget option (in initial set up charges) but time will tell.

I still believe this to be the future. Has to be more commercially viable tho. My car is less than £10k and putting an ev conversion in it wont up that value

Now if i had a £100k 911 it would be a diff story

Keep up the bloody interesting thread

Dave

Commercially viable. Once manufacturers are churning out millions of battery-electric cars the prices will come right down.

But by then I suspect we'll be more interested in hydrogen and the ev's will have just been a short blip on automotive history.

Although this thread is super interesting. I just love it when people do things like this.

 

[Andybpowell]

As usual I'm waiting for parts to arrive so while I'm waiting I decided to fit the new Coilovers and brakes
I'm fitting Coilovers because the standard setup on my car is mostly original and pretty soggy with a few minor leaks from the dampers and Coilovers specifically because there's no guarantee I'm going to get the weight balance right so they need to be adjustable
I've also got all new top mounts and droplinks for the anti roll bars

Oh and just for @Tom Cheesewright this is how you put them together you don't do it on the kitchen table risking the wrath of the missus

also got rear strut tower reinforcing plates and made up some spacers to ensure the damper bottom fixing point is correct

this is my standard front setup you can see where the damper is leaking and the general condition

and here they are all beautiful again just waiting for the new discs, pads and hoses to arrive

the Calipers were also original

so I bought new ones and sand blasted and painted the carriers/backplate

so now that I am waiting for parts for the front I've started stripping the back end down as it will all have to be removed to get the fuel tank out

this was supposed to be an EV conversion project but its becoming something of a restoration as I go along but it's going to look and drive like new
it's just looking a bit sad right now

 

[Tom Cheesewright]

Looking great! Looks like you've gone for the same coilovers as me. And nice job on the calipers. I need to redo mine at some point.

 

[ljbmwz3]

respect buddy, thats a lotta hard work done, you gotta niche there , seen some great conversions on that tv show. At the same time aint it sad thats older cars are being eventually forced off road with the short sighted governments drive to ev,

I just don't get why they cant have exemptions for classic cars that are not daily drives, even if it was weekends only etc. like you im a petrol head.

 

[Andybpowell]

Been busy today

took off the old rear dampers and top mounts and fitted the new top mounts and reinforcing plate

Dropped the diff out

and the rear subframe (that was really light damn I need an assistant )

looks a little bare now

and my garage looks a little full

made a bit of a error in the placement of my Hydraulic lift, it was too far back and stopping me from removing the subframe so I had to put the suspension back together enough to lower the car onto it's wheels
so I could move it forward

other than that and a hex head bolt that needed to be drilled out it all went pretty smoothly

 

[Tom Cheesewright]

other than that and a hex head bolt that needed to be drilled out it all went pretty smoothly

I hate those hex heads. I had to drill out all four to drop my subframe and none of them came easily.

 

[Andybpowell]

The fuel tank is out

the rear subframe has been stripped

rust removed bushes removed and re-painted just waiting for new bushes to arrive so I can put it back together

also my new discs and pads arrived today

 

[Andybpowell]

Another short post just trying to Keep up to date
did the front brakes today new discs, pads, calipers and hoses can't do the rears yet as I'm refurbishing the calipers and still waiting for the hoses for them not that it matters as it will be a while before the rear subframe goes back in.