Seeking advice for Honda CRX HF/Leaf motor project.

Hi all,

I have a 1990 Honda CRX HF I'm hoping to put a Nissan Leaf Motor into, along the lines of Arlin Sansome's, but with the stock Leaf inverter (at least for now).

My local junk yard has access to parts from several Leafs so motors are cheap. Leaf batteries seem reasonably priced so I'll probably go with a gen 1 Leaf battery to start with. I'm in western WA so hopefully heat degradation isn't an issue. I'll probably take the pack apart and see how I can redistribute the modules around the CRX without being ridiculously sketchy.

First question is: does anyone know if a stock onboard leaf charger, hopefully a 6.6 kwh one, can be set up to charge a leaf battery transplanted when transplanted into a new vehicle? I should be able to get a leaf VCU to keep the charger happy if that's necessary. Considering the charging typically happens with the car off hopefully it would be pretty simple to get everything hooked to trick the VCU and Charger into working in another vehicle.

Also has anyone transplanted the whole leaf electrical system into a new vehicle? My guess is that it's easier to use the thunderstruck unit but how hard is it to do and get the Leaf VCU to work with in a new vehicle a Nissan gauge cluster etc.

Can anyone point me to forum threads on here or other sites where other people have done similar motor/battery swaps? I'm just looking for info on how to get through all the little challenges of putting everything together.

Thanks!

Have you searched the “DIY Electric Car”. Forum ?
I have not been there recently (password problems) , but i recall several leaf transplants being posted .
EG.. https://www.diyelectriccar.com/forums/showthread.php/nissan-leaf-into-rover-mini-129310-200007.html

Thanks Hillhater,

I just got on there and it looks like there is a lot of info and expertise around swapping with the Nissan Leaf drive train. It's a big leap but I'm getting closer to going ahead on the project.

Cheers!

Arlo1 here on the forum is probably your closest ally in the CRX conversion world. He's just up the road (and across the water) in Nanaimo BC.

I plan on doing the same with my CRX shortly too. I'm in the other WA - wrong hemisphere.

Hey, you aren't too far from me (Stanwood). Make any progress?

I converted an old Fiesta to series DC electric but I have a 2014 Leaf in my driveway as a donor car to swap the Fiesta over to PMAC. I too was going to just use the Thunderstruck VCU as it looks like a very straight forward control system. I also have a 2011 Leaf inverter and a Spark EV inverter I was going to hope to make my own controller with by replacing the brains.

There are two people that have played with replacing the nissan leaf inverter brains. Damien MaGuire and Johannes. You can find them on youtube or evbmw.com and/or openinverter.org

Hey E^2,

Yeah, I'm pretty close by, up in central Bellingham. I haven't pulled the trigger on buying leaf parts but I'm still Working up to it.Mostly need to figure out a couple things and get a solid shopping list. Main decision is if I want to go with thunderstruck battery chargers or try to use an onbaord leaf charger. I believe the leaf charger, VCU and some other component all have to be from the same car and all present and connected to each other for the charger to work. Main reason I'd want to use the Leaf charger would be if it would make the project cheaper. I'd still probably want to use a thunderstruck VCU since it would probably be easier to integrate and tunable. If I did use the leaf charger the leaf VCU would just be onboard to keep the charger happy and make it work. Since the vehicle charges in a non-driving state I would hope it would be easy enough to keep the VCU from faulting in an "ignition off state" and have it keep the charger working. I'd just like to get the vehicle functional on as low a budget as possible. Later I could upgrade the battery and charging system if necessary.

Anyway, that's where things stand. I need to find a shop to work in in the winter if this is going to happen. We'll see!

Hey Jesse, ever get this going?